A powerful collaboration
For Janet Lippett, Chief Medical Officer, providing gold-standard training for the Trust’s leaders and improving patient care go hand in hand. “If we didn’t invest in our staff and their management and leadership development, we couldn’t meet any of the organisation’s strategic objectives,” she says.
All employees who successfully complete the programme become Chartered Managers - the highest professional accolade in management and leadership, awarded exclusively by CMI. This recognition not only enhances individual careers but also strengthens leadership across the Trust.
“Around 150 members of our clinical and non-clinical staff have completed the CMI Chartered Manager accreditation,” says Janet. “It means we can speak a similar language and it aligns really well with what we’ve been doing in the organisation more generally. We now have aspirational, innovative staff and great leaders who are well-trained and work to collective standards. That combination is really powerful and we can accomplish great things.”
Care and credibility
When it came to choosing which organisation to partner with for the leadership programme, CMI was the obvious choice. “We chose to align with CMI because we genuinely believe they are the most credible in leadership and management expertise,” says Nikki Kenyon-Smith, Associate Director of People and Organisational Development.
Our leaders who achieve Chartered Manager status like to wear that as a badge of honour. It gives them credibility and they become great role models. We’ve seen a major improvement within our leadership and management capability in many different forms across our organisation as a result.
Jess Grierson, Strategic Partnerships Manager, has experienced the benefits first-hand. One of the key reasons she chose to work for the Trust was the opportunity to gain Chartered Manager Status. This opportunity enabled her to gain a professional qualification while equipping her with the skills to thrive in a more senior role.
“The Chartered Manager accreditation has helped me develop my leadership skills within the NHS by giving me the confidence to know what I’m here to do,” she says. “I now have the knowledge and insight to make key decisions independently and get things done. The training has enabled me to take that step above management and look at the bigger picture, helping me to support the work that we do in the Trust at a much greater scale.”
Building strong, inspirational leaders
CMI’s Chartered Manager accreditation has helped to enhance the leadership skills of the Trust’s senior clinicians, as well as the non-clinical team. Janet explains:
I can’t imagine trying to improve patient care without having strong leaders. Our clinicians are brilliant at what they do, but they need that business support. We’re a clinically led organisation, but we’re only able to do that by pairing our clinicians with leaders who are well-trained, and able to make things happen.
Pratap Neelakantan, Clinical Lead for Haematology, is a prime example. Despite having many years’ experience as a clinician, he initially hesitated to take on a senior management role because he felt that he lacked the right qualities to be a leader. That changed when he embarked on the CMI Chartered Manager accreditation process.
“I was asked to step up and lead my department. I was quite junior at that time, and the prospect of steering the team through a very challenging period was daunting,” he recalls. “That’s why I turned to CMI. The Chartered Manager programme gave me the tools to overcome any challenge thrown at me, particularly when trying to improve the culture in my department. CMI has a framework for how to address these kinds of issues, for example by improving communication and transparency and coaching team members who were having difficulties.
Today, my department is flourishing and I’m very proud to say that I’m a part of that. CMI has played a big role too.
A structured approach
Aatif Farooqi, Senior Lead Pharmacist, found that CMI helped him approach complex projects in a more systematic way. “My role involves supply chain management, financial acumen and
operational strategy,” he explains. “The CMI Chartered Manager programme helped me deliver more effectively in these areas. It enabled me to adopt a more structured approach to funding, service delivery and stakeholder analysis. I was also able to plug skills gaps by developing career progression pathways and improving staff retention in my department.”
As well as enabling him to do his job more efficiently, Aatif also feels that the programme has benefited him from a personal perspective.
I’m very glad that I decided to do it because it didn’t just help me in the short-term, it’ll also benefit me and my family in the long-term because it’s opened many new doors of progression for me.
Improving patient outcomes
Ensuring managers receive high quality, credible training is key to organisational success. Nowhere is this more true than the NHS, where combining strong leadership with clinical excellence quite literally saves lives.
"I’d advise any organisation to consider partnering with CMI for their management training,” says Janet. "It’s helped me personally, it’s helped over 150 members of our staff and it’s definitely made a difference to the care we provide and our patient outcomes."
Watch the full video case study
See how CMI Chartered Manager accreditation is boosting management capability and strengthening a culture of care across Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust.