The chief executive comments

The IHM Fellowship programme is built on a model that reflects all that is good about adult education, says institute chief executive Sue Hodgetts. This is not an easy award to achieve, but one to be proud of. And it’s a scheme with something to offer many different types of healthcare manager.

The IHM has just completed a Fellowship programme for the Defence Medical Corp. Out of the 13 participants, 12 were successful. I was privileged to have been part of that programme and watch the growth and learning of the participants who, despite their wealth of experience and previous learning, were able to reflect on their past learning as well as find new areas of growth to make them more effective managers in the context of their complex work.

The Fellowship development programme was built around the expectations of the criteria applied to Fellowship within the IHM, using six domains and demanding a match to competences within those domains.

The programme centred on the knowledge gaps of the participants and a consensus about those gaps was reached, identifying seminars to help fill them. NHS finance, commissioning and strategic planning on a countrywide level were the top three gaps.

The seminars were supported by learning sets and each member of the group was assigned a mentor. Thus the programme consisted of some high quality input from experienced practitioners. Mentors provided access to the NHS, as well as advice and guidance on the Fellowship programme.

Thus the model reflected all that is good about adult education – a structured and specific framework, participation from the group, group consensus, high quality input, individual support through mentorship and peer support through learning sets. The programme concluded with individual oral exams, testing the evidence against the competences and delving beyond the written word.

There has been an ongoing debate about the IHM Fellowship award and how we can make it more accessible to members without losing the rigour. The Professional Development and Event Committee has debated long and hard about this issue and the situation is now as follows.

There are three routes to IHM Fellowship.

1. Participating in the pilot for the new model – this opportunity is available now at the bargain price of £95. There is a half-day introductory workshop on 16 July, other dates to be arranged. More information about the pilot is on the IHM website at www.ihm.org.uk/membership/fellowship/pilot
2. Practice managers have followed the Fellowship by Assessment route. This has produced some excellent and high quality evidence and processes as well as some very positive outputs for participants. The review of the Fellowship process has led to the decision that this route will finally close down later this year.
3. IHM offers a Fellowship programme for specialist interest groups and will also run these for multi-disciplinary and ‘cross-border’ groups.

The Fellowship award is still a prestigious award and the letters FIHM are recognised both within and external to the NHS, indicating an individual’s competence as a senior manager in a health and social care context. In order to take this award, you have to be a senior manager and an IHM member for over two years. It is not an easy award to achieve, but one to be proud of.

Find out which managers received a Fellowship award at the IHM presentation event earlier this month >