Professionalisation of healthcare management, by Ukonu Obasi (Healthcare management Lecturer at Arden University)
Professional has a broad meaning; for a lot of people is simply means getting paid for something you do regularly or making a living from a regular activity. Professionalism on the other hand has to do with the expected behaviour, skill and knowledge of some who is trained for a profession. Professionals like doctors, nurses and pharmacists, have training and then are licenced to practice by a professional body. This professional body sets out codes of conduct, which practitioners of the profession must abide by, and failure to do so, can mean being sanctioned or prevented from practice. In this way, the there is professionalism for those professions.
The role of the healthcare manager should be professionalised. The healthcare manager has significant responsibility for the health and well being of vulnerable people. Their actions and inactions impact on the health of those individuals and their loved ones. It is therefore important that healthcare managers have a code of conduct, and they can be regulated with the possibility of sanction and withdrawal of licence to practice. The professionalisation of the healthcare manager role, is one way to improve quality standard, and ensure greater accountability for practice.
Right now, anyone with a basic knowledge of healthcare can apply and receive a Care Quality Commission (CQC) approval to run a care centre. With this approval, the person can set up an organisation and become a provider of care, subject to the approval of a local authority. This means that there is no standard qualification for healthcare managers, and there is no regulation of healthcare managers in the United Kingdom (UK).
What should happen is that there should be an accepted qualification for healthcare managers. Universities like Arden University provide Bachelor of Science (B.Sc) degree in Healthcare management. Just as the accepted standard for nursing is now a B.Sc in nursing, this would also make the role of healthcare management recognised and considered a professional role in healthcare. Nurses are granted their licence to practice by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC). This role can be played by the Institute of Health and Social Care Management (IHSCM).
The professional body will ensure the professionalisation of the healthcare management role, the regulation of the qualification to ensure high standard, to enforcement of code of conduct that will help to ensure quality of practice and care provision, and this will improve the standard, prestige and image of the profession. It will allow it to attract and keep the best practitioners, develop research and ensure that service users are safe.
We have all seen and heard about what could happen when care goes wrong. We all know that sometimes, no one is held to account when that happens. This measure will go a long way to ensure that we have a way of identifying poor quality in care management, before service users are harmed.
