Staff College’s History
The Staff College: Leadership in Healthcare (Staff College) was founded in 2010 by the late Professor Aidan Halligan with the purpose of developing better leaders for the NHS.
Staff College’s mission is rooted in the belief that improving the quality of leadership is the most effective way of improving the performance and efficiency of healthcare organisation. It has a direct impact on the quality of care and experience of patients. And the experience and motivation of healthcare staff delivering care.
Aidan was inspired by his visit to the military acute medical facility in Helmand Province at the peak of the British Army’s operations in Afghanistan. There he witnessed first hand the extraordinary teamwork, cooperation and leadership of clinical military teams. Aidan attributed this heightened leadership acumen to the military’s commitment and approach to developing leaders at all stages of their career. On his return he set about developing a new way to develop better leaders for the NHS. With the backing of UCLPartners and University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, he founded the ‘NHS Staff College.’
From its inception, Staff College has drawn on the expertise and experience of sectors who have adopted a more systematic approach to the development of leaders. It drew particular inspiration from the military’s approach whilst retaining a strong grounding within the NHS that enabled its programmes to respond to the challenge and context within which healthcare leaders operate.
Staff College developed a practical and experiential methodology for the development of better leaders, drawing on the experience and wisdom of its multi-disciplinary faculty of NHS leaders, military leaders, leadership development specialists and executive coaches.
Originally hosted within the NHS, Staff College became an independent charity in 2016 with an ambition to work with health and care organisations across England, and internationally.
Having built a reputation for delivering highly impactful programmes and grown on the basis of recommendation, Staff College now designs and delivers a wide range of leadership development programmes and coaching offers for leaders working in health and social care, across England and beyond.
Staff College uses its influence with the organisations it supports and through relationships with senior healthcare leaders to raise awareness of the need and benefits of developing leaders who are equipped to work with the challenges of today, and of the future.
Whilst working predominantly with organisations in the fields of health and social care, the charity is open to working with organisations who exist for the public good. To this end it has worked with the Ministry of Justice, non-UK health ministries, universities and international clinical research.