Our new report explores what it means to experience ‘well-led’ care and support, from the perspectives of people with lived experience and people working in health and social care. This work is part of a wider project we’re doing with the Care Quality Commission (CQC), aiming to influence how leadership is understood and assessed across health and social care.
Why leadership matters
Good personalised care and support starts with good leadership at every level. While tools like Making It Real describe what good care should look like, this project asks what kind of leadership makes it possible. We have brought together a wide range of evidence and experiences to answer this question.
What we found
The evidence review identifies five key elements of well-led services and organisations:
- A well-led service or organisation has a shared purpose that is focused on people drawing on care and support, family and friend carers, and families.
- A well-led service or organisation is guided by the lived experience of people drawing on care and support, their family and friend carers, and families.
- A well-led service or organisation has a culture of sincere curiosity and continuous learning.
- A well-led service or organisation is full of goodwill, but this adds value to what is offered, rather than holds things together.
- A well-led service or organisation disperses power and builds trust.
Co-producing the future of leadership
This evidence review highlights the need to keep developing the concept of ‘well-led’ within Making It Real, with a stronger focus on the perspectives of people who draw on care and support, family and friend carers, and people-facing members of the workforce. Alongside this, we are working with CQC to co-produce a set of guiding principles that align with the areas of well-led within the CQC Assessment Framework. These insights will influence how CQC assesses leadership under the key question of ‘well-led’. The principles will be published later this year.
Explore more
To read the full report, visit our resource library.
