Monitor has been in talks with foundation trusts and the Treasury over funding for a business academy to train clinicians for senior NHS management roles.
The scheme is the idea of outgoing Monitor director of policy Robert Harris. He said the plan was about “putting people who are clearly clever in charge of these devolved budgets and incentivising them to manage”.
He said: “Then we will get more for the same money or, Nirvana, more for less money.”
But he added: “The spend-to-save argument is always a tough one to win, I have been on a charm offensive. As soon as the benefits are there to be seen, the vast majority of foundation trusts have said ‘we will fund that’.”
As well as sounding out foundations, he said he had also been working for the last nine months with the Treasury to secure initial funding to set up the academy.
Professor Harris said it would not be a bricks and mortar institution but would be delivered “in the field, where it is instantly valuable”.
Read more at HSJ.
Tags: Management
