I am delighted to welcome you to the March issue of Health Manager. By Breda Crehan-Roche.
Currently health and social care services continue to be challenged throughout the world and this is no different in Ireland, with pressures and challenges such as:
- Long waiting times
- Staff shortages
- Growing demand for services
- Ageing population
- Lack of GP availability
- Funding and investment issues
- Infrastructure and IT challenges
However, we must not lose sight of and celebrate the major advancements and service improvements throughout Health and Social Care services, such as the implementation of Sláintecare and integrated care across acute services and community services.
Thinking of these challenges, now more than ever, compassionate leadership in health and social care is extremely important. This is an approach that prioritises empathy, active listening, and emotional intelligence to create supportive and effective work environments.
In this issue of Health Manager, it is exciting to see a number of articles about compassionate leadership in action. It is encouraging to see that Ireland has now joined the global compassionate coalition, a first for Ireland with two managers signing the compassionate leadership pledge, congratulations to all involved. By signing this pledge they support the compassionate leadership movement and advocate for compassion to be central in health and social care systems.
With over 20 years’ experience in senior management in varies roles such as Assistant CEO in a former Health Board, CEO of non-statutory service provider, and lastly Chief Officer of a Community Health Organisation in the HSE. I am encouraged and excited about the growing groundswell in the compassionate leadership community. I am a firm believer that compassionate leadership in health and social care has many benefits such as improved staff well-being and retention, better service user and patient outcomes, increased productivity and efficiency and enhanced trust and reputation.
Over the years many senior managers in health and social care services embodied the principles of compassionate leadership, long before this term was coined. We can all recall those managers who stood out, who took junior managers under their wing, encouraged them and assisted them in their career progression.
The HSE and RCSI are to be congratulated in pushing forward the Compassionate Leadership agenda. I am delighted to share my management experience and journey with the Clinical Directors on HSE/RCSI executive challenge development, as a Compassionate Action Learning Facilitator. I am one of several senior managers who share their knowledge and experiences in the development of compassionate leadership and leaders.
HMI offers an extensive range of open, in-house, blended and e-training training solution to managers in Health and Social Care in partnership with the Learning Rooms. In order for us to be effective we would encourage you to give us feedback about areas that would assist you and your staff teams. You can email us at info@hmi.ie.
For 2025. one of our priorities is to further grow membership and we will announce further details in due course.
