Milburn reveals plans to 'grow good managers'

The Department of Health is working on the development of a management structure for the NHS, health secretary Alan Milburn revealed last week in an interview with HSJ.

The aim, Mr Milburn said, was to 'grow good managers across the service', though the details of how the career ladder might operate is still being developed.

He also acknowledged that it was 'absolutely vital' to get the right number and right calibre of managers into primary care trusts, where he acknowledged that management capacity is a problem.

'We will look very sympathetically at their management resource needs... not just good managers but the right numbers, ' he said.

Asked whether an announcement on investment in management capacity for PCTs is imminent, the health secretary was cautious, saying that it was 'important to get it right'.

Insiders believe that restrictions on PCT management costs could be lifted in April, with restrictions on other trusts' management costs possibly being eased soon after.

Having announced the latest planning guidance and record level of health spending, Mr Milburn said that the Wanless report had confirmed the previous underinvestment in the NHS and that the government's job now was to lead the debate on how the gap should be bridged.

But he would not be drawn on whether the government was committed to fully funding the amount Derek Wanless will identify in his final report next spring as being needed by the NHS, saying only that 'the report will address the budget and we will have to wait and see'.

Mr Milburn also expressed great disappointment that the government's response to the Kennedy report into paediatric cardiac surgery would not now be published until after Christmas due to lack of parliamentary time.