HEE responds to Messenger Review

Health Education England has welcomed the publication of The Messenger Review on leadership in health and social care.

The review was commissioned by the Government in October 2021 to make recommendations on improvements to how health and social care is led and managed in England. HEE’s Director of Education & Quality and Medical Director, Professor Wendy Reid, is part of a core group of professionals who worked alongside Sir Gordon Messenger and Dame Linda Pollard providing expertise to inform the final review.

Navina Evans, HEE Chief Executive, said: “As a people centred organisation which supports over 160,000 learners and trainees across health and social care, HEE welcomes the recommendations set out in the Messenger Review.

“Everyone who works in health and social care is united in a common purpose to provide the very best care to patients and service users - this must absolutely extend to valuing all colleagues now and in the future.

“Leaders who model compassion, inclusion and a focus on improvement are key to creating cultures where diversity is valued, people feel they belong and are empowered to deliver great care and patient experience.

“At HEE we’re proud to have already established good practice on many areas highlighted in the report in line with our ambition to be the Best Place to Work. We recognise that leaders have a critical impact on the way colleagues feel about their work and our organisation and have put in place mechanisms to support and develop our leaders including establishing a management development programme, monthly meetings of our leadership community and increased development opportunities.

“Furthermore, following a successful pilot, we’ve recently embedded a new framework to support everyone at HEE, to embed inclusion and role model our co-created values of confident, responsible fair and inclusive, across everything that we do – recognising that we are all leaders.

“In September we announced our ambition to become an anti-racist organisation. Alongside Best Place to Work, our anti-racism approach is taking shape through an open working group to ensure we are as collaborative and inclusive as possible.

“The Messenger Review recommendations must remain part of the blueprint of our NHS and social care as we move forward together – collectively, we have real potential to enhance people’s working lives and to positively impact patient outcomes.

“We look forward to contributing to implementation of the recommendations in partnership and collaboration with NHS England and leaders across health and social care.”