Final Report > Chapter 25: Competent Healthcare Professionals > The systems for assuring competence > Managers

Managers

62 Clearly those formally designated as managers, whatever their background, must be prepared adequately for management roles within the NHS. Moreover, they must also be required to participate in continuing professional development, appraisal and revalidation on a basis similar to that proposed for other healthcare professionals. Just as with other healthcare professionals, these obligations should be incorporated into the contract between the manager and the trust. We recognise that currently, while the appraisal of managers is common, CPD and revalidation are significantly underdeveloped. We would expect to see the Council for the Regulation of Healthcare Professionals, together with organisations such as the Institute of Healthcare Management and the British Association of Medical Managers, collaborating to draw up proposals as a matter of urgency. It is inappropriate that one group of healthcare professionals should be excluded from this process of maintaining competence. We note here the strong support for this idea expressed by the Institute for Healthcare Management in a paper for Phase Two:

`... this Institute believes that managers should be subject to the same constraints and regulations on behaviour as those imposed by clinicians' professional bodies. ... The Institute is exploring whether a Code of Professional Conduct should become part of an IHM "fitness to practice" certificate incorporating initial management training, adherence to the Code and evidence of CPD.' [25]

Footnotes

[25] Seminar 5. Institute for Healthcare Management. Position Paper