The Institute of Healthcare Management (IHM) has called for managers to have more opportunities to become partners and leaders in their own practice to improve morale, after a survey showed that half of practice managers have applied for new jobs.
The survey of 112 practice managers, which was given to our sister title Pulse magazine, showed that 57% had applied for a new job, with workload and excessive bureaucracy cited among the main reasons.
Almost all of the practice managers said that they should be a leader in their practice but lack of training and time pressures were barriers to achieving this.
To combat this, the IHM is calling on the GPC and RCGP to “recognise and promote the leadership role of practice managers”, and practices themselves should consider making their practice manager a partner.
Shirley Cramer, chief executive of IHM – which has 3,000 members in health and social care – said: “The healthcare sector is under enormous strain, but practice managers are often forgotten. Changes such as a seven-day service in the NHS have had a significant effect on practice managers but their concerns are often overlooked.”
The institute is also calling for NHS England and the Department of Health to examine ways of reducing pressures from excessive bureaucracy, improve their communication with practice managers, and address issues like duplication, response time demands and complications caused by fragmentation of services.
