The Leadership Centre’s National Director of Systems Leadership, Debbie Sorkin, has contributed to a recently-published book which seeks to help a new generation of health and care professionals understand leadership and management theory and practice.

‘Leading and Managing in Contemporary Health and Social Care’ collates knowledge and experience from experts in a number of different fields, covering topics ranging from the integration of health and care services to organisational culture, resilience and successful financial and project management.

Debbie’s contribution focuses on leading innovation, highlighting what innovations in leadership look like in practice and the role of compassionate leadership as a driver of innovation. Her chapter explains models of leadership across health and social care and provides examples of leadership innovation in and with communities.

Debbie said: “I’m delighted to have been able to contribute to this book, which I hope will be very practically helpful to health and care professionals wrestling with great complexity and change across the health and care system.

“The chapter I have contributed takes a closer look at the major challenges facing global health and care systems and what these mean for innovation in leadership, drawing on examples from across the UK and globally.

“Much innovation in health and care in the UK has been in response to two drivers – a significant increase in life expectancy over the past half century and persistent health inequalities – leading to a system placed under growing strain, but with its existing capacity not equally distributed.

“Although not all progress has been linear, there is now an evidence base of research and real-life examples of leadership innovation within health and care to draw upon. This chapter highlights a number of those examples, identifying and helping to make sense of several themes within them. I hope it provides rich insight for anyone, in any part of the system, who is working to address some of these complex challenges.”

Leading and Managing in Contemporary Health and Social Care is available here. The Leadership Centre is currently contributing to and leading a number of nationally sponsored programmes which have at their heart themes relating to complexity and innovation. If you’d like to find out more, get in touch.