BSc Health and Social Care: Leadership Challenges in Healthcare Sector

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of leadership in the health and social care sector, specifically focusing on the challenges faced by the NHS. It delves into the current pressures, including an aging and growing population, lifestyle factors, and medical advancements, and explores how th...Read More

Leadership in health
and social care sector
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................3
Current challenges of the NHS ..................................................................................................3
Political leadership in social care and analyse the importance of demonstrating responsible
leadership in the health and social care setting ..........................................................................4
Analyse the importance of demonstrating responsible leadership in a health or social care
setting..........................................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION ..............................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................8
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INTRODUCTION
An effective leadership enables shaping of organisational culture and driving the
implementation of reforms within the health care sector. These are helpful in managing the new
concepts of health care sector and achieving success (Barnes, Yu, and Webster, 2020).
Leadership within health and social care sector is based upon management and leadership as
these are associated with both management and leadership as it is relevant for different health
care services. This report will describe the current challenges faced by NHS and political
leadership in social care. It also includes current perspective and challenge of leadership. There
is also discussion about importance of leadership within health and social care organisation.
MAIN BODY
Current challenges of the NHS
There are several challenges which are faced by NHS which is one of the best
organisation across the world (Bezler, Moneta, and Pheiffer, 2019). There are some economic,
political and social pressures on this company which are interlinked. According to the report of
Kings Fund report, there are some challenges faced by NHS listed below -
 An ageing population
 A growing population
 Evolving healthcare needs like increase in obesity diabetes or antibiotic resistance
 Closure of local services because of centralised drives
 Increase in reliance on privatised services
According to this report, it is concluded that ageing and growing population has resulted in
increased demand of 17000 hospital beds by the year 2022. Moreover, there is also demand for
nurses, doctors, medical equipments and staff. Some of the challenges of NHS are explained
below -
An ageing and growing population – NHS has developed a lot and when it was started, owners
were not having idea that it can attain this much success (Borkowski, and Meese, 2020).
According to the statistics, it is concluded that 65% people are fastest growing part of the
population and it will increase by 24% by the year 2039.
Lifestyle factors
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There is impact of lifestyle factors such as smoking, poor diet, drinking that have impact upon
health service resources. There is increase in heart diseases and cancer which has increased the
number of patients that need treatment (Choo, and et.al, 2019). According to the statistics, it is
concluded that there is need to manage the lack of beds and other resources for treatment and
operations of patients.
Medical advancement – There are medical advances and technological development that has
resulted in estimating the progress of medical technology costs. Leadership is needed to manage
the ways in which the new technologies are learnt and targets are achieved in less time.
Enhancement of reliance n NHS services – there are more people who are visiting A&E
department of NHS. There is increase in case of minor injury units. People do not have enough
space to manage the treatment (Feldman, and et.al, 2019). In winters, there are more people who
come for treatment. There is lack of space in hospital at that time. A proper leadership is used to
maintain the work properly and attain the targets in less time.
How are the challenges met?
NHS has performed in a good manner within the market as per the economic terms. Government
has fought for securing future of NHS and making it cost efficient. There is a solution for NHS
which includes moving patient care out of the hospital into clinics within GP surgeries and
within the community (Robbins, and Davidhizar, 2020). There are some trusts take into
consideration of funding as they have helped to manage the fund problem. Another way for
managing government includes redressing of funding issues. This includes some local services
for funding.
There are new government approaches developed for facing the challenges faced by NHS. These
include saving money by cutting social care budget. They have increased funding for mental
health (Sindhwani, and et.al, 2019). There is need to minimise waiting time by the means of
managing access to GP. There are few medical professionals who know NHS in a better manner
and it is easy to decide the challenges faced while operating.
Political leadership in social care and analyse the importance of demonstrating responsible
leadership in the health and social care setting
The political leadership is implied upon both operational and political dimension. There
is need of structured and strong support for determining strategy and managing responsibility as
well as ownership. It includes aligned policies and providing decisions for managing the
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resources. There are political skills involved in various leaders and these qualities help in
managing existing scenario of companies and managing to achieve goals. Within NHS, there are
several leadership styles used for managing and controlling patients and individuals.
Healthcare environment is dynamic and complex. This is seen while experiencing
problems that needs unique features for best managing the organisations. There are some
problems related to internal pressures which can occur from increased demand for accountability
and transparency, increased impact of stakeholders like social groups or political groups. There
are some external factors which affect such as globalisation, government policies, economic
factors, etc. which influences the health sector organisations like NHS. There are various reforms
involved within NHS (Tyndall, and et.al, 2019). Changes are common among in this
organisation and an effective leadership helps to manage the operations and functioning
properly. There are several organisational changes within NHS and the leaders have to control
and manage them properly. There is one change which has impacted the social context of health
care and it includes increase of health care clinicians into managing, controlling and organising
the operations of NHS.
Analyse the importance of demonstrating responsible leadership in a health or social care setting
There is need to have effective leadership within health care leaders because the health
care environment has become more complex. It has created health care leaders to manage the
new technologies effectively. New mobile technology has increased the way of patient – doctor
connectivity. It has enabled development of patient network and social media. Big Data has
increased demand for specialised tech roles for ensuring proper management of human resources
and organisational structure. Building a good leadership is very helpful for the health
organisations to manage the operations in future.
There is great importance of leadership within the healthcare industry. NHS faced various
challenges which have to be overcome for managing the operations. There are various providers
who have to provide high quality and efficient care to patients. Leaders of NHS plan, direct and
coordinate healthcare services by integrating new technologies and improving the laws and
regulations. Some of the leadership styles followed within NHS are mentioned as below -
Transformational leadership - according to this type of leadership, the main focus is
upon the empowerment of staff people for managing organisational changes. These type of
leaders find different ways for sharing leadership processes with various employees at different
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positions. The transformational leaders of NHS inspire and motivate individuals for working
towards betterment of healthcare organisation. These leaders are loyal towards their work and
they build trust and confidence and share vision with the staff members. These leaders develop
strong relationships with staff members and they are able to attain organisational targets in less
time. These leaders focus upon attaining objectives and focusing on employees who are
committed towards development and growth. These provide motivation to group members and
provide a clear vision that boosts action (Walton, Murray, and Christian, 2020). These provide
motivation and enhance job satisfaction. The different key features of transformational
leadership are mentioned below -
 Intellectual stimulation - There are transformational leaders who promote creativity and
enhances the staff members for increasing learning opportunities and innovating the way
in which operations are done.
 Individualised consideration - There are transformational leaders in NHS which support
the individuals who are led by encouragement of communication, supportive
relationships and idea sharing. They are involved in recognising the team members for
contributing within organisational effectiveness.
 Inspirational motivation - These type of leaders helps in articulating a clear vision and
fostering passion among employees for developing ways to achieve it.
 Idealised influence - Leaders of NHS are acting as role models and they adopt ideals and
emulate the behaviour.
There are several healthcare executives of NHS who can benefit the organisation through
transformational leadership approach. This kind of leadership style is effective when the team
members use advanced skills for working in different fields. When employees lack some skills,
there is need of having close supervision. Transformational leadership is best used in such
situations when employees are not able to achieve targets easily.
Healthcare leadership challenge is new payment model. This is related with healthcare
professionals who are using payment models, health insures as well as third party vendors who
are assuming the presence of financial risks. The healthcare providers must structure and align
care. The value based care needs healthcare companies to meet specific metrics. It includes
synchronising of workflow, collecting data and coordinating care for meeting that metrics. It is
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very effective to analyse metrics for ensuring that they are managing the operations effectively
and attaining the health improvement by minimizing future costs.
There are several benefits which a healthcare organisation like NHS uses that is helpful in
managing disruptive changes. There is need of meeting particular metrics which are needed by
value based care. There are health executives who can find transactional approach for the
benefits of leadership. There are controlling costs which are developed according to procedures
and roles. If any person wants to succeed his or her career in healthcare sector, then there is need
to have good leadership skill. There is need to have good health administration as well as
business knowledge for managing the work.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it is concluded that leadership is the most important factor for any
organisation that enables it to function properly. There are different ways of leadership styles
that can be used by managers for controlling and monitoring organisational activities. There are
several challenges within the health and social care organisation and these have to be managed
properly for achievement of success. It is very important to understand the challenge faced by
NHS. This will help to minimise the way in which activities can be controlled and monitored
effectively. It will lead to develop an effective strategic development and growth.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Barnes, T., Yu, T.C.W. and Webster, C.S., 2020. Preparedness of medical students and junior
doctors for their role as clinical leaders: A systematic review. Medical Teacher, 42(1),
pp.79-85.
Bezler, T., Moneta, G.B. and Pheiffer, G., 2019. Development and validation of the work
environment complexity scale for leaders. Journal of Organizational Change
Management.
Borkowski, N. and Meese, K.A., 2020. Organizational behavior in health care. Jones & Bartlett
Publishers.
Choo, E.K., and et.al, 2019. From# MeToo to# TimesUp in health care: can a culture of
accountability end inequity and harassment?. The Lancet, 393(10171), pp.499-502.
Feldman, S.S., and et.al, 2019. Training leaders for a culture of quality and safety. Leadership in
Health Services.
Robbins, B. and Davidhizar, R., 2020. Transformational leadership in health care today. The
Health Care Manager, 39(3), pp.117-121.
Sindhwani, R., and et.al, 2019. Modeling and analysis of factors influencing agility in healthcare
organizations: An ISM approach. In Advances in Industrial and Production
Engineering (pp. 683-696). Springer, Singapore.
Tyndall, D.E., and et.al, 2019. Changing new graduate nurse profiles and retention
recommendations for nurse leaders. JONA: the Journal of Nursing
Administration, 49(2), pp.93-98.
Walton, M., Murray, E. and Christian, M.D., 2020. Mental health care for medical staff and
affiliated healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. European Heart Journal:
Acute Cardiovascular Care, p.2048872620922795.
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