How to be an effective clinical director

Medicine is one of the oldest professions with its origins dating back to ancient times. Current management strategies are a relatively new feature of the National Health Service, and have evolved and increased in importance quite dramatically over the last 30 years. Although doctors previously had a role in management, the creation of the Clinical Director post has formalised these arrangements. A Google search for 'clinical director' comes up with 16,900,000 entries (taking just 0.31 s to come up with this fact!) but despite the enormous amount that has been written about this role many doctors taking on these duties believe they are poorly prepared, and the medical organisations, including the Royal Colleges, have been unable to develop training programmes for prospective or newly appointed clinical directors. Clinical directors' duties differ between organisations of different size and with different management structures, but there are issues, such as key competences, training and support, which are relevant to all posts.