The Francis Report

Within this assignment, the importance of leadership and management will be discussed and differentiated. Leadership theories, styles and change management models will be discussed and critically reviewed and referred to in relation to a chosen national driver. A national driver is essential, following the results of the Francis Report in 2013, as it leads to safety and high-quality care. The purpose of this essay is to highlight the correlation between effective leadership, management and patient safety.

According to the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s The Code (2015), an individual’s confidentiality must be maintained at all times (Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2015). To adhere to the Code, all those mentioned within this assignment have

To address this, Francis made several recommendations on changes to the way nurses work to improve quality of care offered by frontline NHS staff (Entwistle, 2013). The Francis Report (2013) highlighted that the decline in standards was associated with inadequate staffing levels and skills, as well as a lack of effective leadership and support (Entwistle, 2013), therefore, recommendation 195 of the report suggested that “ward nurse managers should operate in a supervisory capacity, and not be office-bound” (RCN, 2016). Within the report, Francis stressed the importance of strong nurse leadership from ward to ward, in order to drive up standards of excellence, to support an open organisational culture, and to deliver high quality and safe patient care (RCN, 2016). For this reason, clinical leadership is crucial for the future viability of the NHS (Storey & Holti, 2013), and is central for the execution of effective care delivery and for the coordination of work processes (Grindel,

When discussing leadership theories and styles, the common question arising is – ‘Are leaders born or made?’. Earlier theories such as Trait theories, which are also known as ‘The Great Man Theory’, developed by Carlyle (1841) was born out of the philosophy of Aristotle, who believed that some are born to lead, and others are born to be led (Barr & Dowding, 2016). It is based on the belief that leaders possess exceptional qualities (Barr & Dowding, 2016). The theory attempted to determine which specific traits make a person an effective leader, by concentrating on identifying who were considered ‘great’, with their characteristics or traits as a reason for their success (Ledlow & Coppola,