The NHS Leadership Framework: A Practical Guide for Doctors

• Leadership in the NHS is not restricted to people with formal management titles.
• The Healthcare Leadership Model describes nine dimensions of effective leadership behaviour.
• These dimensions cover values, compassion, information, systems, vision, engagement, accountability, development and influence.
• The newer NHS Leadership and Management Framework provides more detailed expectations for people at different levels of leadership and management responsibility.
• Doctors demonstrate leadership through clinical work, teamwork, teaching, quality improvement, service development and formal management roles.
• Strong leadership is demonstrated by how you influence people and improve services, rather than simply by the title you hold.

The term “NHS Leadership Framework” can cause some confusion because NHS approaches to leadership development have evolved over time. There is not simply one current document containing everything doctors need to know about leadership.

The best-known model is the Healthcare Leadership Model, developed by the NHS Leadership Academy. It describes nine dimensions of leadership behaviour and was deliberately designed to apply to people throughout healthcare rather than only to those holding senior management positions. More recently, the NHS has introduced a Leadership and Management Framework, which provides a more detailed description of the standards and competencies expected of people with formal leadership and management responsibilities.

For doctors, the two approaches are complementary. The Healthcare Leadership Model provides an accessible way of understanding how effective leaders behave, while the newer Leadership and Management Framework considers the broader capabilities required as leadership and management responsibilities increase.

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Leadership does not begin when you become a consultant

One of the most important principles underlying NHS leadership development is that leadership is not synonymous with seniority. Doctors can demonstrate leadership long before they hold a formal leadership position because leadership is fundamentally about influencing people, taking responsibility and improving the way care is delivered.

A resident doctor who identifies an unsafe handover process, gathers information about the problem, engages colleagues and helps introduce a better system is demonstrating leadership. A registrar who develops a teaching programme or improves a clinical pathway is doing the same. At consultant level, the scale may become larger: redesigning services, managing conflict within a department, developing colleagues or influencing decisions across an organisation.

The context changes as responsibility increases, but many of the fundamental behaviours remain the same. Leadership should therefore be understood as something doctors practise throughout their careers rather than a responsibility that suddenly begins when somebody receives a management title.

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Leadership and management overlap, but they are not identical

Leadership and management are closely connected in healthcare, but there is a useful distinction between them. Management is concerned largely with organising people, resources and processes so that services function effectively. Leadership is concerned more broadly with direction, influence, culture, relationships and change.

In practice, doctors in senior roles usually require both. A clinical lead might need to manage a waiting-list problem by examining capacity, workforce and performance data, while also leading colleagues through the changes necessary to address it. A clinical director may need to understand budgets and operational performance while simultaneously creating a shared direction for the department and managing difficult relationships.

Effective healthcare leadership is therefore not simply about inspiring people. Doctors increasingly need to understand how NHS organisations work and how ideas can be translated into safe, sustainable and measurable improvements.

The NHS Healthcare Leadership Model describes nine dimensions of leadership behaviour:

• Inspiring shared purpose
• Leading with care
• Evaluating information
• Connecting our service
• Sharing the vision
• Engaging the team
• Holding to account
• Developing capability
• Influencing for results.

These should not be regarded as nine completely separate skills. In practice, effective leadership usually involves several dimensions simultaneously. A doctor leading a service improvement project, for example, may need to analyse information, create a shared vision, engage colleagues, influence senior managers and hold people to account for agreed actions.

For doctors, the value of the model lies in using these dimensions to examine real behaviour. Rather than simply asking whether you have “leadership experience”, the framework encourages you to consider how you approach problems, involve people, make decisions and achieve results.

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1. Inspiring shared purpose

Inspiring shared purpose means creating a sense of common purpose based on values and the needs of patients. Healthcare professionals frequently work in environments where priorities compete: improving access, maintaining quality, reducing waiting times, managing limited resources and protecting staff wellbeing may all be important simultaneously. Effective leaders help people retain sight of why the service exists and what they are collectively trying to achieve.

For doctors, this becomes particularly important during disagreement or change. Different professional groups may have legitimate but competing priorities, and discussions can easily become dominated by workload, resources or departmental interests. A leader who inspires shared purpose brings the conversation back to the fundamental objective and helps colleagues identify areas on which they can agree.

For example, if two departments disagree about responsibility for part of a patient pathway, simply arguing about which department should undertake the work may entrench the disagreement. Refocusing the discussion on what produces the safest and most efficient journey for patients can create a different starting point. Practical issues such as workload and resources still need to be resolved, but they can be considered within an agreed purpose.

This dimension is therefore closely connected to values. Leaders need to demonstrate through their own decisions and behaviour that the principles they promote genuinely influence how they work.

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2. Leading with care

Leading with care is about understanding the people you work with and creating an environment in which they can perform effectively. It includes empathy, respect, listening and awareness of how your behaviour affects others.

Compassionate leadership does not mean avoiding difficult conversations or accepting poor performance. In fact, failing to address a problem can be unfair both to the individual concerned and to colleagues who have to compensate for it. The challenge is to combine appropriate support with clear professional expectations.

Consider a trainee whose performance has deteriorated. A leader could immediately assume that the individual lacks motivation or competence, but a more thoughtful approach would establish what has changed. There may be a knowledge gap, excessive workload, unclear expectations, problems within the team or personal circumstances affecting performance. Understanding the cause allows the leader to provide appropriate support while remaining clear about the standards that need to be achieved.

Leading with care also affects team culture. People are more likely to raise concerns, admit uncertainty and ask for help when they believe they will be treated fairly. In healthcare, where unspoken concerns can have direct consequences for patient safety, creating that psychological safety is an important leadership responsibility.

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3. Evaluating information

Healthcare leaders constantly make decisions in situations where information is incomplete, contradictory or open to different interpretations. Evaluating information means actively seeking evidence, questioning assumptions and using information from different sources to understand what is actually happening.

Doctors are already accustomed to using evidence in clinical decision-making, but leadership decisions often require a broader range of information. This might include waiting-list data, complaints, incidents, workforce information, financial data, patient feedback, audit findings, benchmarking and the experience of frontline staff.

Imagine a department with a rapidly increasing waiting list. The obvious conclusion might be that more clinics are required, but that is only a hypothesis. The leader needs to establish where the problem actually lies. Referral numbers may have increased, follow-up rates may be unnecessarily high, clinics may not be fully utilised, diagnostic capacity may be limiting throughput or administrative processes may be creating avoidable delays.

Good leadership therefore requires curiosity. Rather than starting with a preferred solution and searching for evidence to justify it, effective leaders first try to understand the problem and then decide what action is most likely to address it.

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4. Connecting our service

Connecting our service means understanding that individual teams and departments operate within a much larger healthcare system. Decisions made in one part of the system can have significant consequences elsewhere, and improving one performance measure does not necessarily mean that the overall service has improved.

This is particularly important for doctors because clinical work frequently crosses organisational and professional boundaries. A hospital service may depend on primary care, diagnostics, pharmacy, community services, social care and other specialties. A change that makes life easier for one department may simply transfer workload or risk to another.

For example, reducing routine hospital follow-up appointments may release outpatient capacity, but if patients are simply transferred back to general practice without adequate guidance or support, the apparent improvement may have created a new problem elsewhere. Similarly, increasing surgical activity without considering theatre capacity, beds, diagnostics and postoperative services may create bottlenecks further along the pathway.

Effective leaders therefore think in terms of pathways and systems rather than isolated departments. They ask who else will be affected, where dependencies exist and whether a proposed improvement genuinely benefits the wider service.

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5. Sharing the vision

Sharing the vision means communicating a clear and credible picture of what the team or organisation is trying to achieve. Leaders may understand exactly why something needs to change, but that understanding is of little value if the people expected to implement the change cannot see the purpose or direction.

Effective communication of a vision involves more than announcing a target. People need to understand what is wrong with the current situation, what the proposed future looks like, why it would be better and how the organisation intends to get there.

Suppose a clinical leader wants to redesign an outpatient service. Telling colleagues that the department needs to “improve efficiency” is unlikely to inspire much enthusiasm. Explaining that patients are currently waiting several months because too much capacity is being consumed by low-value routine follow-up, and showing how a redesigned pathway could release appointments while maintaining safety, provides a much clearer purpose.

A credible vision must also acknowledge reality. Leaders lose trust when they present change as effortless or ignore legitimate concerns. Sharing a vision means being positive about what can be achieved while remaining honest about the challenges involved.

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6. Engaging the team

Engaging the team means involving people in the work of the service rather than treating them simply as recipients of instructions. Healthcare teams contain a wide range of professional expertise, and leaders who fail to use that expertise often make poorer decisions.

Engagement begins with listening. A consultant may understand the clinical aspects of a patient pathway extremely well but have limited awareness of the administrative processes that determine whether the pathway works efficiently. Nurses, pharmacists, allied health professionals, administrative staff, trainees and patients may each see problems that are invisible from another perspective.

Involving these groups can improve both the quality of the solution and the likelihood that it will be implemented successfully. People are generally more willing to support a change when they understand why it is happening and have had a genuine opportunity to contribute to its development.

Engagement does not mean that every decision must be made by consensus. Leaders remain responsible for making decisions, including decisions that some people may dislike. The difference is that effective leaders listen to relevant perspectives, explain how decisions have been reached and ensure that people feel their contribution has been taken seriously.

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7. Holding to account

Holding to account is an essential part of leadership and one that doctors can sometimes find uncomfortable. It means establishing clear expectations, agreeing responsibilities, monitoring performance and addressing problems when agreed standards are not being met.

Accountability works best when expectations are explicit. It is difficult to hold somebody responsible for an outcome if their role was never clearly defined or if they lacked the authority, resources or training necessary to achieve it. Effective leaders therefore create clarity before assessing performance.

When performance problems occur, the response should be proportionate. A colleague who has misunderstood an expectation may need clarification. Somebody lacking a particular skill may need development or supervision. Persistent failure to meet agreed standards despite appropriate support may eventually require a more formal response.

Holding people to account is not incompatible with compassionate leadership. Indeed, allowing poor performance to continue can adversely affect patients, colleagues and the individual concerned. Strong leadership combines clear standards with fairness and appropriate support.

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8. Developing capability

Developing capability means helping individuals and teams become more able to perform, improve and take responsibility. The strongest leaders do not simply demonstrate their own competence; they increase the competence of the people around them.

For doctors, this may involve teaching, supervision, mentoring, coaching, delegation and providing constructive feedback. It also involves recognising potential and giving colleagues opportunities to develop rather than retaining control of every important responsibility.

Delegation is a good example. A consultant who personally manages every project may initially appear extremely effective, but the service becomes dependent on that individual. A leader who delegates appropriately, provides support and gradually increases other people's autonomy creates a more capable and resilient team.

Developing capability also requires leaders to think beyond immediate performance. Services need future clinical leaders, educators and managers. Helping colleagues acquire the experience and confidence to take on these responsibilities is therefore part of sustainable leadership.

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9. Influencing for results

Influencing for results means being able to achieve worthwhile outcomes through relationships, persuasion and collaboration. It is particularly important in the NHS because leadership frequently operates across professional and organisational boundaries where formal authority is limited.

A consultant may want to introduce a new service but require agreement from nursing leadership, operations, finance, another specialty and senior management. Simply stating that the service is clinically desirable is unlikely to be sufficient because different stakeholders will have different concerns and priorities.

Effective influence begins with understanding those perspectives. Clinical colleagues may be interested primarily in quality and safety, operational managers in capacity and flow, finance teams in affordability and executives in organisational priorities and risk. A persuasive proposal addresses these different considerations rather than presenting exactly the same argument to everyone.

Influence also depends on credibility and relationships built over time. Doctors who listen to other people's concerns, understand organisational pressures and have a reputation for being constructive are often better able to achieve change than those who rely entirely on clinical authority.

The nine dimensions are most useful when applied together rather than treated as a checklist. Real leadership challenges are rarely solved through a single behaviour, and the strength of the Healthcare Leadership Model lies partly in showing how different aspects of leadership interact.

Consider a consultant who wants to reduce delays within a clinical pathway. They first need to evaluate information to establish where the delays occur and connect the service to understand the effects on other teams. They then need to inspire shared purpose and share the vision so that colleagues understand why change is necessary.

Implementation requires them to engage the team and influence for results, particularly where cooperation is required from people outside their direct authority. As the work progresses, they need to hold people to account for agreed actions while leading with care when difficulties arise. If they use the project to develop colleagues and delegate responsibility, they are also developing capability.

This is why learning the names of the nine dimensions is only the starting point. The real objective is to understand how these behaviours combine when doctors are trying to improve services, lead teams and deliver better patient care.

The Healthcare Leadership Model remains a useful way of understanding leadership behaviour, but the NHS has continued to develop its approach. The newer Leadership and Management Framework provides national standards and competencies for people with leadership and management responsibilities and reflects the increasing complexity of leading modern healthcare organisations.

The framework is particularly relevant to doctors moving into formal roles such as clinical lead, clinical director, divisional director or medical director. At these levels, being able to motivate and influence colleagues remains important, but leaders also need a broader understanding of people, resources, organisational performance and the wider health and care system.

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Leadership expectations develop with responsibility

The framework recognises that leadership expectations should increase with the level and complexity of responsibility. It begins with fundamental capabilities for people developing their leadership and management skills and then progresses through stages covering new and first-line leaders, mid-level leaders, senior leaders and board-level leadership.

For doctors, the appropriate level is not determined simply by clinical grade. Two consultants may have very different leadership responsibilities. One may primarily deliver clinical work, while another may lead a large multidisciplinary service with significant workforce, financial, governance and performance responsibilities. Their leadership development needs will therefore be different.

As responsibility increases, leaders need to broaden their perspective. They move from leading individuals and teams towards understanding organisational strategy, managing complexity, working across boundaries and considering how decisions affect the wider healthcare system.

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Personal impact, people, resources and organisational delivery

The newer framework places leadership within the wider reality of managing healthcare. Personal effectiveness and communication remain important, but leaders also need to understand how to manage people and resources and how to deliver across health and care.

This reflects an important progression in medical leadership. A doctor may initially develop leadership through teaching, quality improvement or coordinating a clinical team. With greater responsibility, they need to understand workforce, performance, finance, governance, strategy and organisational priorities.

Clinical credibility remains important, but it does not automatically equip somebody to lead a complex NHS service. These wider leadership and management capabilities need to be deliberately developed.

Leadership frameworks can feel theoretical when they are presented as lists of behaviours. Their real value becomes clearer when they are applied to situations doctors actually encounter. Most strong examples of medical leadership involve several elements of the framework simultaneously.

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Leading service improvement

Imagine a specialty in which waiting times for new patients have increased steadily. The simplest response may be to ask for additional clinics, but a more sophisticated leadership approach begins by understanding the problem.

The clinical leader reviews demand and capacity data, looks at follow-up activity, speaks to administrative staff, examines diagnostic delays and discusses the problem with colleagues. They discover that a significant proportion of routine follow-up appointments could safely be managed differently.

Rather than imposing a solution, the leader involves the multidisciplinary team in redesigning the pathway, considers the implications for other services and seeks patient input where appropriate. The change is introduced with agreed measures covering waiting times, patient experience and clinical outcomes.

This demonstrates evaluating information, engaging the team, connecting services, sharing a vision and influencing stakeholders. The leadership is demonstrated not by having the title of project lead, but by understanding the problem, bringing people together and translating an idea into measurable improvement.

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Managing disagreement and underperformance

Leadership is also demonstrated through the way difficult situations are handled. A colleague may resist a service change, a trainee may struggle to meet expectations or two professional groups may disagree about responsibility for part of a pathway.

Effective leaders do not automatically interpret disagreement as obstruction. They explore why people hold different views, establish the facts and identify legitimate concerns. At the same time, they recognise when a decision needs to be made or when poor performance needs to be addressed.

This balance between listening and decisiveness is fundamental to healthcare leadership. The aim is neither to impose every decision nor to achieve universal consensus, but to make fair and evidence-based decisions while maintaining constructive professional relationships.

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Leading after a patient-safety problem

Patient-safety incidents also provide an important test of leadership. A weak response focuses exclusively on the individual incident and the people immediately involved. A stronger response asks whether the event reveals a wider pattern or problem within the system.

A leader may examine previous incidents, speak to staff, review relevant data and map the process to identify contributory factors. They can then work with colleagues to introduce appropriate changes and determine how improvement will be measured.

This demonstrates an important shift from simply responding to today's problem to creating learning that reduces the likelihood of the same problem occurring again.

Leadership capability develops through a combination of experience, feedback, reflection and structured learning. Doctors should therefore look beyond collecting leadership titles and concentrate on experiences that genuinely develop their ability to lead people and improve services.

Some of the most useful opportunities arise from everyday problems. An inefficient pathway, recurrent safety concern, poor induction process or communication failure can provide an opportunity to understand a problem, involve colleagues and lead improvement.

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Build experience through real problems

The important distinction is between participating in something and genuinely leading it. Attending a committee or joining a quality improvement project may provide useful exposure, but stronger development occurs when you take responsibility for understanding a problem, engaging the relevant people, making decisions and following the work through to its outcome.

Over time, doctors should seek progressively more complex experiences. Early projects may involve a small clinical team. Later responsibilities may require working across departments, managing resources, resolving significant disagreement or influencing organisational decisions.

The quality of the experience is more important than the title attached to it. A relatively small project in which you genuinely led change can provide much stronger evidence of leadership than membership of several committees in which you had little personal impact.

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Develop an understanding of how NHS organisations work

Doctors entering leadership roles also need to understand the environment in which they are trying to achieve change. Clinical expertise alone is insufficient when decisions involve finance, workforce, governance, quality, strategy and operational performance.

Doctors should therefore progressively develop their understanding of areas such as NHS structures, clinical governance, patient safety, workforce management, finance, quality improvement and organisational strategy. The more senior the leadership role, the more important it becomes to understand how these elements interact.

Structured development can help doctors connect leadership theory with the situations they encounter in practice. ISC Medical's Leadership and Management Course for Doctors is designed specifically around this need, exploring the practical leadership and management skills doctors require when taking on greater responsibility within the NHS.

The aim is not simply to learn leadership terminology. Effective development should help doctors understand their own approach, work more effectively with teams, manage difficult situations, influence change and understand the organisational environment in which clinical services operate.

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Use feedback and reflection deliberately

Leadership can be difficult to assess because people naturally judge themselves by their intentions, whereas colleagues experience leadership through behaviour. Feedback is therefore essential.

Doctors should seek feedback not only after formal leadership projects but also about how they communicate, delegate, respond to challenge and involve other people. Difficult situations can be particularly valuable opportunities for reflection because they expose assumptions and behaviours that may not be apparent when everything is going well.

Instead of asking only whether a project ultimately succeeded, consider what you would change about your approach. Did you involve the right people early enough? Did you understand the concerns of those who resisted the change? Did you communicate clearly? Did you delegate effectively? Could you have addressed conflict earlier? These questions turn experience into genuine leadership development.

Leadership questions feature frequently in interviews for consultant, senior clinical and NHS management posts. Understanding the framework can help candidates identify stronger examples and reflect more intelligently on their leadership, but simply repeating the terminology is unlikely to impress an interview panel.

Panels generally want to understand how you actually behave as a leader. Your examples therefore need to demonstrate judgement, influence, self-awareness and impact rather than merely knowledge of leadership theory.

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Do not simply recite the nine dimensions

If you are asked about your leadership style, listing the nine dimensions of the Healthcare Leadership Model tells the panel very little about you. A stronger answer explains the principles that guide your approach and supports them with evidence.

You might explain that you generally favour a collaborative approach because people delivering a service often understand its problems best, while recognising that situations involving immediate safety concerns may require more decisive leadership. You can then demonstrate this with a real example.

The framework becomes useful behind the scenes. It helps you analyse your experiences and identify whether your examples demonstrate engagement, influence, accountability, information gathering, systems thinking and development of others.

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Show what changed because of your leadership

Strong leadership examples should have a clear narrative. Explain the problem, why it mattered and what responsibility you personally took. Describe how you understood the situation, who you involved, what difficulties or resistance you encountered and what you actually did. Finally, explain the outcome and what you learned.

The crucial distinction is between participating in something and leading it. Saying that you sat on a governance committee tells the panel very little. Explaining that you identified a recurring problem through the committee, gathered evidence, developed a proposal, secured agreement from relevant stakeholders and then measured the effect of the change demonstrates genuine leadership.

At more senior levels, panels will also be interested in the complexity of your leadership. They may want to know how you handled competing priorities, managed disagreement, influenced people outside your authority and balanced quality, resources and organisational pressures.

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Demonstrate flexibility in your leadership approach

There is no single leadership style that works in every situation. Effective leaders adapt their approach according to the circumstances while remaining consistent in their values.

A stable team discussing a long-term service redesign may benefit from extensive engagement and shared decision-making. An immediate patient-safety emergency requires clearer direction. An experienced colleague may need considerable autonomy, while a struggling trainee may require more supervision and structure.

Strong interview answers therefore demonstrate not simply that you have a preferred leadership style, but that you understand when that style needs to change.

Leadership is often misunderstood, particularly by doctors who have had relatively little formal management experience. These misconceptions can prevent doctors from recognising leadership experience they already possess and can also lead to ineffective approaches when they take on more senior roles.

Understanding what leadership is not can therefore be almost as useful as understanding the framework itself.

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“I don't manage anyone, so I'm not a leader”

Formal line-management responsibility is not necessary to demonstrate leadership. Doctors lead whenever they influence colleagues, coordinate teams, improve systems, develop other people or help introduce change.

A registrar leading an improvement project may demonstrate considerably more leadership than somebody who holds a formal title but has little meaningful influence. What matters is the responsibility taken, the behaviours demonstrated and the impact achieved.

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“Leadership means being the person in charge”

Leadership and authority are not the same thing. Many of the most important things doctors need to achieve depend on people who do not report to them.

This makes influence particularly important in healthcare. Building relationships, understanding other people's priorities and developing a persuasive case may achieve far more than relying on hierarchy.

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“Good leaders keep everybody happy”

Leadership frequently involves difficult decisions. A service change may inconvenience some colleagues while improving the overall pathway. A team member may require challenging feedback. Resources may need to be redirected from one priority to another.

The objective is not universal popularity. Effective leaders make defensible decisions, explain their reasoning, listen to legitimate concerns and treat people fairly even when agreement cannot be reached.

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“Leadership is something you either have or you don't”

Some people are naturally confident communicators, but leadership involves far more than personality or charisma. Analysing problems, influencing people, managing conflict, providing feedback, delegating effectively and leading change are all skills that can be developed.

Leadership frameworks are useful partly because they break leadership down into behaviours that can be observed, practised and improved.

Doctors who want to develop as leaders should focus less on accumulating positions and more on developing evidence of increasing responsibility and impact.

A strong leadership portfolio demonstrates progression. A doctor may begin by leading a small improvement project, progress to coordinating a wider departmental initiative and later take responsibility for significant service development or organisational leadership. The scale changes, but many of the same fundamental leadership principles continue to apply.

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Focus on outcomes rather than titles

A title such as “committee representative”, “trainee lead” or “quality improvement lead” tells us very little by itself. The stronger questions are what you actually contributed and what changed because of it.

Did you identify a problem? Did you gather evidence? Did you bring people together? Did you encounter resistance? Did you influence a decision? Did you improve a process? Did you measure the result?

Recording these details makes leadership experience much more useful for appraisal, professional development and future interviews. It also encourages more meaningful reflection because it focuses attention on your behaviour and impact rather than simply your position.

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Develop leadership and management together

Doctors progressing into senior positions should also recognise that leadership experience alone is not enough. Clinical leads and consultants increasingly need to understand operational pressures, resources, workforce, governance, performance and organisational priorities.

Leadership and management therefore need to develop together. A doctor may have an excellent vision for improving a service, but delivering that vision may require a business case, workforce planning, financial understanding, performance measures and collaboration with operational colleagues.

This is why practical leadership development should extend beyond abstract leadership models. ISC Medical's Leadership and Management Course for Doctors looks at leadership and management in the context of the situations doctors actually encounter, helping participants understand not only how to lead people but how to work effectively within NHS organisations.

The NHS leadership frameworks are useful because they give doctors a language for understanding behaviours they may already use and capabilities they still need to develop. They also demonstrate that effective healthcare leadership is much broader than confidence, charisma or seniority.

At its best, medical leadership combines compassion with accountability, evidence with judgement, and ambition with an understanding of how complex healthcare systems actually work. It requires doctors to listen carefully, analyse problems, involve the right people, communicate a clear direction, influence people who may have very different priorities and follow change through until they can demonstrate whether it has improved care.

The nine dimensions of the Healthcare Leadership Model provide a useful foundation for understanding these behaviours, while the newer Leadership and Management Framework reflects how expectations expand as people take on greater responsibility. Neither should be treated simply as a list to memorise. Their real value comes from applying them to the everyday challenges of leading teams and services.

For doctors taking on greater responsibility, these abilities rarely develop automatically through clinical seniority alone. They need experience, reflection and deliberate development. ISC Medical's Leadership and Management Course for Doctors provides structured training in these areas, with a focus on applying leadership and management principles to the realities of working within the NHS.

Ultimately, the most useful question is not whether you can name the dimensions of an NHS leadership framework. It is whether the people you work with, the services you contribute to and the patients you care for are better because of the way you lead.