The system is increasingly complex and fast paced, this requires adaptable individuals who are able to influence, enable and support their workforce across the boundaries of power to ensure the delivery of compassionate care. This requires our leaders and managers to be skilled in systems leadership, whilst also working to create the architecture required at place, community, and geographical level to deliver high quality, person-centred care.
In order to give the best possible service to our citizens and communities, leaders in health and social care now need to work closer together, collaborate more and learn new leadership skills to ensure the success of the formation of the Integrated Care Systems that were formed on 1 July 2022, due to the Care Act (2022).
Integrated care systems (ICSs) are partnerships of organisations that come together to plan and deliver joined up health and care services, and to improve the lives of people who live and work in their area. This short clip from by the Kinds Fund will help you understand the formation in more detail.
Our leaders now need to learn more skills to help them and their people with these new ways of working. We need to collaborate, listen, co-design, let go and understand more the complexities of how our partners work together to improve care for our citizens and communities.
In partnership with our national and regional colleagues we have complimented our Leadership Development offer to include system leadership programmes, workshops, conferences and bespoke support to help partners working across our integrated care systems to have conversations, learn, share, develop and improve.
Board Development Support
We are very proud to be able to support our NHS organisations and integrated care boards with board development, supporting them to face the challenges of the ever-increasing demands in our current climate. We do this with our 3 tier Board Development offer and those who are interested can apply for this support by emailing us at [email protected]. We use established and evidence based frameworks to support this work and we work with a faculty of very experienced facilitators to provide this service. Our offer varies from Executive Coaching, psychometric profiling to carrying out a diagnostic and delivering team coaching and organisational development design interventions. We can offer workshops in Systems Leadership, EDI and Talent Management and succession planning, to name but a few. Please do download our brochure and contact us if you wish to discuss your requirements further.
Find out more – Board Development flyer
Cluster ICB Board Development Offer
The NHS 10 Year Health Plan sets out the need to reposition ICBs as strategic commissioners to support the three shifts and the ICB Blueprint emphasised the need to merge functions and demonstrate leaner governance by clustering ICBs.
In order to support this change, we have added an additional strand to our Board Development offer which supports the very senior leaders of clustered ICBs through and beyond this significant transformation of their organisations and services.
Systems Leadership Development Offers
We have a number of development offers to support our systems leaders with development and below you can see them in detail. You can also download our brief flyer for yourself or your organisation and if you want us to jointly brand it for you, please email us with your logo and we will do this for you – [email protected]
Find out more on – Systems Leadership Development flyer
Foundations in System Leadership
New registrations for Foundations in System Leadership are currently paused. Further information will follow soon.
The Foundations in System Leadership; collaborating for health and care programme is open to all colleagues working in health, care, local authorities and voluntary sector partnerships, who have a desire to improve the way they collaborate across organisational, professional and hierarchical boundaries to design and deliver better health outcomes for the communities they serve.
The no cost programme is hosted on FutureLearn, an online learning platform utilised by world-class universities and organisations. The recommended structure is a 5 week learning journey, with approximately 2-3 hours study time per week. You can click on this link to find out more or download this available flyer.
Leading for System Change
This national programme is a practical, place-based support for integrated care systems (ICS), to build collaborative system-wide leadership thinking and practice, supporting pan-sector teams working across organisational boundaries on complex issues relating to ICS strategic priorities. It aims to build understanding and expertise within each ICS around what it means to work at a system level; to encourage new ways of working and – ultimately – to enable better outcomes for people using health and care services.
We will work with you as a system to nominate small (minimum: 6 people) pan-sector teams or sets, drawn from different parts of the NHS, local government, public health, the voluntary and community sectors, education, housing, sport and leisure etc. (With up to a maximum of 5 teams across each ICS – approximately 40 people in total). To find out more visit this national link. For more information and costs please email: [email protected]
We are pleased to have been able to support Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland integrated care system recently to support their Long Term Conditions Strategy programme of work, with our Leading for Systems Change programme. This flexible programme brings in expert system leadership facilitators to bring together colleagues to focus and work together to progress a systems challenge. To read more about our work with LLR ICB please read our evaluation report.
The Systems Leadership Approach
The Systems Leadership Approach introduces a range of perspectives that will empower you as a leader to approach your current situation with a renewed focus on how to foster collaboration across diverse healthcare needs and stakeholders. We’ll dive into the heart of Systems Leadership and consider how theory relates to your day-to-day role. By exploring real-world case studies, sharing best practice and insights these workshops will inspire you to lead purposefully and consider the ripple effect of System Leadership at all levels.
We are running 2 cohorts of this new programme. Each session takes 30 delegates and even though this was filled within a very short space of time advertising it .The subject of each session are as follows:
Session 1: Leading with System Leadership: Collaborative Approaches
Session 2: Leading with Care: Compassionate and Inclusive Leadership
Session 3: Leading for Impact: Understanding Systems Thinking
Session 4: Leading Together: Embracing Distributed Leadership
Session 5: Leading for Change: The Leadership Qualities that Matter in Inclusive Systems
System Leadership Behaviours Self-Assessment
System leadership and leading across the system brings many levels of complexity.
Brand new for this year, the System Leadership Behaviours Self-Assessment has been designed as a multi-functional development tool to support all leaders working across a system or place-based environment with self-reflection and assessment.
It will support individuals to identify their strengths, areas for development and personal readiness for System Leaders.
Leading Transformation for Integrated Care (now complete and recordings available)
Colleagues working in health, social care and the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector are welcome to join us for our new series of 90-minute, virtual sessions. We have different topics for you to choose from which have been co-designed with the seven Regional Hubs of the NHS Leadership Academy and will be hosted by our delivery partner, Tricordant.
So what is this series about? Based on insights and experience drawn from work with a number of Integrated Care Systems across England, these sessions will explore what partnership working looks like across teams and organisations.
What does this mean for leaders? It is co-designed with input from local representatives to understand their current challenges and opportunities. The aim is to enhance participants’ capability to think and act as leaders within systems.
This series is for anyone involved in change and transformation, delivery of new integrated care services, organisation development and partnership development working in health and social care systems across England.
System Convening (now complete, if you are interested in exploring this concept a book is available)
This masterclass is for people who are involved in complex initiatives and are looking for tools and perspectives for making a difference across multiple boundaries or silos of practice, institutions and geography. The goal is to help you think through a strategy for dealing with your project in its broader context of often-competing initiatives, perspectives, expectations, and politics.
The System Thinking Practitioner Apprenticeship supports decision-makers in strategic and leadership roles to understand and address complex and sometimes even ‘wicked’ problems through provision of expert systemic analysis, advice and facilitation.
Other Offers from Midlands Leadership Academy
Our comprehensive leadership development offer is available to all those aspiring to and in leadership roles, which will support you on your system leadership journey.
Coaching and mentoring is often perceived as the single most effective development opportunity that a leader can access. Whether you are aspiring to a leadership role or are in an Executive Leadership role, we can help you.
Our Leadership Learning Zone features a suite of 22 leadership learning modules including An Introduction to leadership, Coaching, Talent Management, Equality and Diversity, System Leadership, Resilience, Unconscious Bias and more. Another 10 System Leadership Modules will soon be added.
Onboarding Resources for Newly appointed ICB Leaders
Explore curated resources for newly appointed Integrated Care Board leaders including websites, articles, reports, papers, videos, and podcasts around areas such as setting strategy and delivering long term transformation, leading for social justice and health equality and building trusted relationships with partners and communities.
Find out more on the Senior Leader Onboarding and Support website
New to Integrated Care Boards Playlist
The NHS Leadership Academy have an interesting mix of podcasts and webinars curated to give an overview of the broad range of issues Integrated Care Boards, Systems and Partnerships will tackle and the kind of impact they can make.
Topics will evolve overtime to reflect both foundation and current topics so keep listening!
New to Integrated Care Board Playlist – NHS Senior Leadership Onboarding and Support
How the NHS structure in the Midlands is changing
The way the NHS is organised in the Midlands is changing.
At national and regional level, NHS England, which oversees the health service, will be amalgamated with the Department of Health and Social Care.
At a local level, the 11 integrated care boards (ICBs) in the Midlands, which commission the majority of health services, are also changing.
A first step, with the aim of making the most of capacity and resources, has seen the 11 ICBs cluster together into five groupings:
- NHS Birmingham, Black Country and Solihull
- Coventry and Warwickshire and Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICBs
- Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin, Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICBs
- Derby and Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICBs
- NHS Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Rutland ICBs
The clusters were agreed by the 11 ICBs, and endorsed by ministers, based on a series of criteria including ability to:
- meet statutory functions
- improve outcomes for local people
- address inequalities
- work effectively at neighbourhood level
- operate sustainably with their financial limits
Clustering may lead in time to formal mergers; however, this would not take place until April 2027, not least as configuration also has to take into account potential changes to local authorities which may not be clear before summer 2026. For now, clustering ICBs will work together through shared leadership and combined teams and will remain separate legal entities.
Chairs for the clusters have now been confirmed as:
- Birmingham and Solihull ICB and Black Country ICB – Danielle Oum
- Coventry and Warwickshire ICB and Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICB – Crishni Waring
- Derby and Derbyshire ICB, Lincolnshire ICB, and Nottingham, Nottinghamshire ICB – Dr Kathy McLean
- Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland ICB and Northamptonshire ICB – Anu Singh
- Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICB and Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin ICB – Ian Green OBE
Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) for the clusters have now been confirmed as:
- Birmingham and Solihull ICB and Black Country ICB – David Melbourne
- Coventry and Warwickshire ICB and Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICB – Simon Trickett
- Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICB, and Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin ICB – Simon Whitehouse
- Derby and Derbyshire ICB, Lincolnshire ICB, and Nottingham, Nottinghamshire ICB – Amanda Sullivan
- Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland ICB and Northamptonshire ICB – Toby Sanders
With Chairs and Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) in place, other senior personnel will be appointed for each cluster following due process.