Doctors not qualified for NHS reforms say health bosses

Doctors are not qualified to take on sweeping health service reforms and foundation trust managers are not focused on training them to do so, a new survey has found.

Senior health managers ranked financial management as a key skill for GPs about to be tasked with managing NHS budgets but put the importance of post-reform training for doctors at less than five on a zero-to-ten scale of priorities.

Jayne Carrington, managing director of Right Management, the talent and career management consultancy that commissioned the research, said the coalition government's NHS reform bill had created uncertainty among staff in the world's third largest employer.

"For the NHS, it means keeping a workforce of 1.3 million in England and Wales on board and engaged with the prospect of reform.

"The sheer scale of this challenge means that a strategic investment to support staff - making sure they understand the changes, have the right skills and feel equipped to do their job - will be the only way to drive this work and ensure its success," she said.

The survey, conducted in April by Iluma Research, involved 155 board-level and department-head foundation trust managers and 190 GPs across the NHS.

Eighty two per cent of trust managers said maintaining staff productivity during major change would be a challenge, while just 63 per cent identified skills as a challenge.

The survey found that health bosses were sceptical that GPs had the necessary skills to manage commissioning responsibilities. Managers scored financial management at 7.7 as a skill needed by GPs in their new role on the zero-to-ten scale, but rated GPs current abilities in this field at 4.9.

While GPs rated their own abilities higher, at 6.2 on the same scale, financial management was still the area where medics felt they most needed training, the survey found.

But talent management was revealed as a low priority for health bosses preparing for the reforms. They ranked driving efficiency at 8.4 on the zero-to-ten scale and quality of service at 8.2. But developing a strategy for talent management was ranked only at 5.8, dropping to 4.9 for the period after reforms are implemented.

Carrington said: "The NHS cannot afford not to prioritise the development of its people. NHS staff are fundamental to seeing successful change implemented and sustained."

The survey found that GPs were more optimistic about reform than managers.

More GPs thought reform would lead to less bureaucratic decision-making (77 per cent) than managers (40 per cent), while the majority of GPs thought there would be a better quality of service for patients (71 per cent), opposed to just 35 per cent of managers.

However, both GPs (65 per cent) and managers (53 per cent) were worried about privatisation.