ABSTRACT

Medical leaders must actively engage with improving services, especially in hard financial times, and clinicians need to lead the process of innovation and improvement and the elimination of waste. However, this will need to be supported by the development of key skills in leadership, management and quality improvement. Medical leadership programmes should be developed and designed as bespoke programmes and tailored to meet the needs of patients and service users from within a given local population, encouraging shared learning across primary and secondary care and collaborating with patient groups. Social Identity Theory (SIT) helps to explain intergroup conflict and has particular relevance in healthcare where there are many different types of professional groups and subgroups. Although groups can give us an important sense of pride and a sense of belonging, they can also contribute to others feeling excluded and forming part of an 'outgroup'.