A first in the UK, the course comes after a number of government reviews that found that management failures led to lapses in patient safety. 

Liverpool John Moores University has designed a one-year degree course in hospital senior management for Circle Health Group, the UK’s largest private hospital group. 

The course from Liverpool Business School – Britain’s first – includes patient safety and clinical standards, overseeing the hospital estate, hospitality services as well as commercial issues. 

It also looks at navigating the management of specialised consultants and interacting with coroners and families.

“Managing a hospital is one of the toughest jobs in the UK, with enormous responsibilities that include life and death, scrutiny from multiple regulators and managing some of the most specialised professionals in the country,” said Circle’s chief people officer David Cooper.

“Too often there has been a culture of naming, shaming and blaming, which has only made their job harder. We choose a different approach: backing our leaders with the bespoke training and teaching.” 

How to stop high turnover

The university pointed out that nearly two-thirds of NHS hospitals have a first-time chief executive, while one-third of the sector’s chief executives have been in their current post for 18 months or less.

It argues that such high turnover rates in UK hospital management – which have accelerated since the COVID-19 pandemic – are associated with the pressures of the role, which involves managing complex healthcare procedures, finances, estates and a wide array of stakeholders.

The government is currently consulting on a new system of regulation for hospital managers to raise standards after several high-profile public reviews over the last two decades identified serious failures in NHS leadership with lapses in patient safety. 

These include the Francis Inquiry into the failings at the Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust, the Kark Review of the fit and proper persons test and the 2022 Messenger Review.

“Training people in high-pressure jobs to be effective and to thrive is vitally important for the delivery of services but also for the retention of valuable staff in their roles,” said Lisa Knight, head of management development and innovation at Liverpool Business School.