£46m pledged for NHS's 'biggest ever' leadership programme

The new NHS Leadership Academy will receive the funding windfall from the Government to help train 10,000 people a year up to 2015.

These will include 5,000 nurses and midwives, as well as other NHS staff, who will complete specialist training courses to help them lead their teams and organisations better.

Leadership Academy managing director Jan Sobieraj said the programme was about “industrial levels of innovation and change.”

He continued: “To our knowledge nothing on this sort of scale has been done before. This is really big and will involve thousands of people going through our programmes in the next few years.

“Leaders set the organisational tone and climate; you have to have the right skills to be able to do that.

“There is variation - you get some fantastic places and you get some dire places and a lot of that is about the culture that a leader creates.

“We want a much more coordinated approach to leadership across the NHS.”

The money will come from the £140m fund for improved technology and leadership training announced by prime minister David Cameron at the weekend.

Approximately 1,200 front line health workers will benefit in coming months, before the full programme starts in September 2013.

The three core programmes will include a foundation level course, mid-career development and executive leadership. Each will aim to enhance the technical skills, knowledge and behaviour of those involved.