The Scottish Government

Leadership programme- Leading Change

Effective leadership is key to the changes and improvements set out in Delivering for Mental Health. DFMH commited to the development of a Leadership Programme to ensure this component is fully supported and addressed. The programme is focussed on leading service and cultural change.

Leading Change has two main aspects:

• Developing leadership capacity and skills in the pilot NHS Board areas; and
• Delivering organisational change/projects that support implementation of one of the key DFMH comittments.

This is a one year pilot project involving 7 NHS Boards. NHS Board areas were invited to put forward 8 MH leaders from across a range of professional groups, service users and carers. These proposals were considered by an independent panel. The sucessful projects for 2007-08 are:

• Embedding recovery into culture and service provision (NHS Ayrshire and Arran)
• Introducing the recovery approach (NHS Forth Valley)
• Developing a tool re Equality and Social Inclusion (NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde)
• Improving assessment and care in times of acute crisis( NHS Lanarkshire)
• Implementing a new rapid response model (NHS Lothian)
• Implementing the stepped care model (NHS Lothian)
• Developing day services that promote Social Inclusion (NHS Tayside)

The programme started in April 2007 and will be independently evaluated in March 2008. The interim report is encouraging and suggests that participants are both improving and developing their leadership skills alongside developing the change project.

8 teams from 9 NHS Boards (one team is a joint bid) will participate in the 2008 cohort. The successful project plans will shortly be added.

For further information contact Linda Anne Smith linda@smithsquared.co.uk