Determining the leadership role of health authority chief executives in the english national health service

• Main Author: Goodwin, Neil
• Published: University of Manchester 2001
• Subjects: 362.1068
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.632815

This thesis explores the leadership role of chief executives of National Health Service (NHS) health authorities in England. Implicit in the exploration is whether the chief executives have a leadership role at all since the NHS is a public service managed by government. As such it is government that specifies the main operational and strategic targets for the NHS for chief executives and their organisations. The research is conducted against the backdrop of the general leadership, public sector management, and network and networking literature. The latter is included because it potentially provides a bridge between the emerging network-based working of NHS management today and the leadership and public sector management literature A qualitative, case study approach to the research is adopted using as its basis the implementation of the main component of the 1997 Labour government's policies for the NHS. This is the introduction of primary care groups that for the first time in its history will formally involve general practitioners (GPs) in the corporate management of the NHS. This is a significant development because GPs are not employees of the NHS but independent contractors. Research is undertaken in four of the 99 English health authorities. Analysis of the research results revolve around three propositions, formulated to explore tlie environmental aspects of the chief executive's role, whether leadership is found and if so, what are its key characteristics. The thesis ends with a discussion of the research outcomes in the context of some contemporary literature on research approaches to organisational change, aspects of leadership and networks such as power and trust, and leadership development.