Articles / Leadership HSCNI: A Complete Guide to Health and Social Care Northern Ireland Leadership Development
Development, Training & CoachingDiscover comprehensive leadership development programmes offered by Health and Social Care Northern Ireland (HSCNI), including the HSC Leadership Centre courses, graduate schemes, and executive development pathways for healthcare professionals.
Written by Laura Bouttell • Sun 4th January 2026
Leadership within Health and Social Care Northern Ireland (HSCNI) operates on a fundamentally different premise to most healthcare systems worldwide. Rather than treating leadership as the exclusive domain of those with corner offices and impressive job titles, HSCNI has embraced a collective leadership philosophy that recognises every employee's capacity to influence, inspire, and drive meaningful change.
This approach stems from a simple yet profound insight: in a system where frontline staff interact with patients and service users daily, waiting for direction from distant executives creates dangerous delays and missed opportunities for improvement. The HSC Collective Leadership Strategy, launched in 2017, formalised this philosophy, establishing a framework that has since shaped every leadership programme and development pathway across Northern Ireland's integrated health and social care system.
For professionals seeking to advance their careers, understand available opportunities, or simply become more effective in their current roles, navigating HSCNI's leadership landscape requires understanding both the philosophy underpinning it and the practical programmes available. This guide provides precisely that navigation, offering a comprehensive overview of leadership development within one of the UK's most distinctive healthcare systems.
The HSC Leadership Centre stands as the primary vehicle for leadership development across Health and Social Care Northern Ireland. Operating as a unit within the Business Services Organisation (BSO), the Centre provides management training, organisational development support, and consultancy services to all HSC organisations.
Three interconnected pillars define the Centre's work. The first focuses on leadership and innovation, delivering programmes designed to build collective leadership capacity at every organisational level. The second provides bespoke consultancy services, including team-based working initiatives, workforce attraction and retention strategies, and support for strategic planning and service transformation. The third pillar—HSCLC Digital—facilitates digital literacy development, offering everything from basic IT skills training to sophisticated digital consultancy supporting organisational transformation.
What distinguishes the HSC Leadership Centre from similar bodies elsewhere is its explicit alignment with HSCNI's collective leadership philosophy. Every programme, workshop, and consultancy engagement reflects the principle that effective leadership emerges from collaborative effort rather than hierarchical command. Participants learn not merely to lead their own teams but to contribute to leadership across organisational and professional boundaries.
The Centre maintains dedicated training facilities at 12 Hampton Manor Drive in Belfast, including IT suites, lecture rooms, syndicate spaces, a boardroom, and conference facilities. However, following the launch of HSC Learn, the regional learning management system, most programmes are now accessible through learn.hscni.net, enabling broader access across Northern Ireland's geographically dispersed health and social care organisations.
| Service Area | Description | Key Offerings |
|---|---|---|
| Leadership and Innovation | Core leadership development | Acumen, Proteus, management programmes |
| Bespoke Consultancy | Tailored organisational support | Team development, workforce strategy, change management |
| HSCLC Digital | Digital skills and transformation | eLearning, IT training, digital consultancy |
HSCNI offers a structured portfolio of leadership programmes, each targeting specific career stages and professional groups. Understanding these programmes—their eligibility requirements, content focus, and expected outcomes—enables informed decisions about professional development investments.
Acumen represents the HSC Leadership Centre's flagship programme for senior executives. Now in its fifth year, Acumen targets Directors, Medical Directors, and Associate Medical Directors across health, social care, and public services. The programme extends beyond traditional healthcare boundaries, welcoming participants from wider public sector organisations who can contribute diverse perspectives whilst benefiting from healthcare leadership insights.
Built on contemporary research into leadership behaviours, Acumen contextualises this evidence base for the strategic challenges confronting Northern Ireland's health and social care system. The programme challenges participants to examine their personal resilience for leading transformation, explore what high-impact and collective leadership means within their specific contexts, and develop networks extending beyond Northern Ireland to other healthcare systems and public services.
Participation requires organisational nomination rather than individual application. Confirmation of places occurs through consultation between the applicant's organisation and the Programme Director, reflecting the programme's positioning as a strategic investment in organisational leadership capacity.
Proteus targets the tier immediately below executive level—Assistant Directors at Bands 8b to 8d, Clinical Directors, Clinical Leads, and Specialty and Associate Specialist (SAS) Doctors. The programme explicitly addresses the pipeline challenge many health systems face: ensuring sufficient leadership capacity exists to fill executive positions as they arise.
Delivered across five modules, Proteus incorporates a regional improvement project completed in teams throughout the programme duration. This project culminates in presentations at the final module, ensuring participants apply learning to genuine organisational challenges whilst building collaborative relationships with peers from other HSC organisations.
The programme costs 3.5 management development places or approximately £3,353, typically funded through organisational training budgets. Applicants must contact their Organisation and Workforce Development or HR SLA Co-ordinator to register interest and confirm funding arrangements.
For nurses and midwives at Band 8b and above—or those at other bands who report directly to a Director—the Florence Nightingale Foundation, in partnership with the Department of Health Northern Ireland, offers an Aspiring Directors programme. This externally funded initiative specifically prepares nursing and midwifery leaders for board-level positions.
The programme recognises that nursing and midwifery professionals often require distinct development pathways, given their clinical backgrounds and the specific leadership challenges they face when transitioning to executive roles. Scholarships of up to £14,000 are available for nurses and midwives with potential to secure board-level positions within two to three years.
| Programme | Target Audience | Duration | Cost/Funding |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acumen | Directors, Medical Directors | Multiple modules | Organisational nomination |
| Proteus | Assistant Directors (8b-8d), Clinical Directors | Five modules | £3,353 / 3.5 MD places |
| FNF Aspiring Directors | Nurses/Midwives Band 8b+ | Variable | DoH NI funded (up to £14,000) |
| ADEPT Fellowship | Doctors in training | One year | NIMDTA funded |
| Graduate Training Scheme | Recent graduates (2:2+) | Two years (three for Accountancy) | Salaried position |
For those at the beginning of their health and social care careers, the HSC Graduate Training Scheme offers structured entry into leadership development. This fast-track programme provides graduates with two years of intensive development (three years for the Accountancy pathway), combining practical experience across HSC organisations with formal leadership training.
The scheme offers multiple pathways, enabling graduates to align their development with career interests:
Management Trainee Scheme: Provides broad exposure to health and social care management, rotating through different functions and organisations to build comprehensive understanding of system operations.
Graduate Procurement and Logistics Scheme: Focuses on the complex supply chain and procurement functions essential to healthcare delivery, from medical equipment sourcing to pharmaceutical distribution.
Graduate Information Technology Services Scheme: Addresses the growing importance of digital transformation in healthcare, developing specialists who understand both technical requirements and healthcare contexts.
Graduate Engineering Trainee Scheme: Targets the estates and facilities management functions critical to safe, effective healthcare environments.
Graduate Human Resources/Organisation Development Scheme: Builds expertise in workforce planning, staff development, and organisational effectiveness—increasingly critical given healthcare's workforce challenges.
Eligibility requires a minimum 2:2 degree in any discipline, or a professional, degree-level or higher qualification that is health or management related. Importantly, candidates may apply for multiple schemes, though each has a separate selection process requiring completion of distinct assessments and interviews.
The programme begins with a comprehensive two-week induction hosted by the HSC Leadership Centre. A highlight includes panel discussions featuring former graduate trainees who have progressed to senior leadership positions, including Chief Executives and Directors. These sessions provide invaluable insights into potential career trajectories and the practical realities of healthcare leadership.
Successful applicants join a cohort of approximately ten graduates annually, creating peer networks that often endure throughout careers. The September 2025 intake, for instance, included graduates pursuing pathways in Human Resources and Organisational Development, Engineering, Accountancy, and General Management.
Medical professionals face distinctive leadership development challenges. Their extended training periods, demanding clinical responsibilities, and often fragmented career pathways can make traditional leadership programmes inaccessible or poorly suited to their needs. HSCNI has developed specific programmes addressing these challenges.
The ADEPT (Achieve, Develop, Explore Programme for Trainees) Clinical Leadership Fellowship offers senior doctors in training a year-long opportunity to step out of clinical training and work in an apprenticeship model with senior leaders across HSC organisations.
Managed by the Northern Ireland Medical and Dental Training Agency (NIMDTA), ADEPT places approximately ten fellows annually across host organisations including Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, the Department of Health, NIMDTA itself, Queen's University Belfast, the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust, and the Southern Health and Social Care Trust.
During their fellowship year, ADEPT fellows undertake one or more specific projects under senior supervision, attend dedicated leadership training, and access extensive networking opportunities with healthcare colleagues across the system. The programme explicitly aims to develop doctors who possess the knowledge, skills, and experience to offer leadership in their workplaces and more broadly across HSCNI upon completing their clinical training.
Research evaluating the programme's six-year experience demonstrates that ADEPT delivers effective leadership training as measured against the nine domains of the NHS Healthcare Leadership Model. Importantly, fellows who complete the programme prove more likely to engage in formal leadership roles subsequently, suggesting lasting impact on career trajectories and system leadership capacity.
Selection occurs through competitive application involving written submissions, interviews, and presentations. The process attracts candidates from diverse specialties including Surgery, Medicine, General Practice, Paediatrics, and Psychiatry.
The ENGAGE Clinical Leadership and Improvement Programme targets Final Year GP, Dental, and Specialty Trainees—capturing professionals at the critical transition point from training to independent practice. Developed collaboratively by NIMDTA and the HSC Leadership Centre, ENGAGE focuses on quality improvement as a vehicle for leadership development.
The programme's stated aim is supporting 'continual and never ending improvement of the well-being of patients and other service users.' With Value Based Leadership as its foundation, ENGAGE challenges participants to develop capabilities that enable effective influence over service quality throughout their careers.
Nursing and midwifery represent the largest professional groups within HSCNI, making leadership development for these practitioners crucial to overall system effectiveness. The Collective Leadership Framework for Nursing and Midwifery, launched by the Health Minister in September 2024, provides the strategic architecture for this development.
Developed by NIPEC (Northern Ireland Practice and Education Council) at the request of the Chief Nursing Officer, this framework builds directly on the HSC Collective Leadership Strategy whilst addressing nursing and midwifery's specific professional contexts. It includes an Assessment Tool enabling practitioners to evaluate their leadership capabilities against the four components of collective leadership: leadership as everyone's responsibility, shared leadership in and across teams, interdependent and collaborative system leadership, and compassionate leadership.
The framework explicitly seeks to develop 'informal' leaders at every level whilst simultaneously preparing those with competencies for formal leadership roles when they become available. This dual focus reflects the collective leadership philosophy: leadership development matters for everyone, not merely those on promotional pathways.
Health Minister Mike Nesbitt, launching the framework, noted that 'in nursing and midwifery, strong leadership directly correlates with safer patient outcomes.' This evidence base—demonstrating concrete links between leadership capability and care quality—underpins the investment in comprehensive leadership development for these professional groups.
Beyond the framework, nursing and midwifery professionals access specific programmes including the Nursing and Midwifery Leadership and Management Programme delivered through the HSC Leadership Centre, and the Windrush Nurses and Midwives Leadership Programme offered through the Florence Nightingale Foundation for practitioners from ethnic minority backgrounds in Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.
A distinctive feature of HSCNI's approach to leadership development lies in its integration with quality improvement. The HSCQI (Health and Social Care Quality Improvement) network provides the infrastructure for this integration, recognising that leading improvement requires leadership capabilities, whilst improvement work provides excellent vehicles for developing leaders.
The Quality 20:20 Attributes Framework, published by the Department of Health, established the knowledge, skills, and capacity organisations should develop in quality improvement. Subsequently, HSC organisations have invested significantly in QI training, building capability whilst simultaneously developing leadership capacity.
Several specific programmes operate at this intersection:
EQUIP Programme: Developed by NIMDTA for GP Specialty Trainees, EQUIP (Experience in Quality Improvement) has attracted international recognition for its approach to moving from 'know-how' to 'do-how'—ensuring participants can apply improvement methodologies in practice.
QUEST Programme: Developed by HSCQI to leverage unused QI capacity across the workforce, QUEST addresses a common challenge: trained staff who lack opportunities to apply their skills. By creating structured improvement projects, QUEST provides leadership development opportunities whilst delivering system benefits.
Primary Care QI Training: Targeted at primary care settings where improvement leadership often operates with less structural support than acute settings, this training builds capability appropriate to general practice and community care contexts.
The integration of leadership and quality improvement reflects a practical insight: healthcare professionals often find improvement work more engaging than abstract leadership training. By embedding leadership development within improvement methodologies, HSCNI creates development opportunities that feel directly relevant to clinical and operational realities.
Navigating access to HSCNI leadership programmes requires understanding multiple pathways, as different programmes operate through distinct application and nomination processes.
The primary access point for most HSC Leadership Centre programmes is learn.hscni.net, the regional learning management system. Following registration, staff can browse available programmes, review eligibility requirements, and submit applications or expressions of interest. The portal provides course details, scheduling information, and booking functionality for programmes with open enrolment.
Senior programmes, including Acumen and Proteus, require organisational nomination rather than individual application. Interested staff should discuss their development aspirations with line managers and connect with their Organisation and Workforce Development or HR teams to understand selection processes and funding arrangements.
Organisations typically operate annual cycles for identifying nominees, often linked to appraisal and personal development planning processes. Understanding your organisation's specific procedures—and timing applications appropriately—significantly increases access likelihood.
Some programmes, including the ADEPT Fellowship and Florence Nightingale Foundation opportunities, operate through external organisations with their own application processes. NIMDTA manages ADEPT applications, typically opening annual recruitment cycles with advertised deadlines. The Florence Nightingale Foundation similarly operates defined application windows for its various scholarships and programmes.
The HSC Graduate Training Scheme recruits through annual campaigns, typically advertising in spring for September intake. Applications are submitted through dedicated recruitment platforms, with candidates progressing through assessment centres and interviews.
| Access Route | Programmes | Process |
|---|---|---|
| HSC Learn (learn.hscni.net) | Management programmes, short courses | Self-registration, online booking |
| Organisational nomination | Acumen, Proteus | Line manager discussion, OWD/HR coordination |
| NIMDTA application | ADEPT Fellowship, ENGAGE | Annual competitive application |
| FNF application | Aspiring Directors, scholarships | Application to Florence Nightingale Foundation |
| Graduate recruitment | HSC Graduate Training Scheme | Annual recruitment campaign |
For general enquiries about HSC Leadership Centre programmes:
The HSC Leadership Centre is a unit within the Business Services Organisation that provides management training, organisational development support, and consultancy services to Health and Social Care organisations across Northern Ireland. Its programmes are primarily available to staff employed within HSC organisations, though some executive programmes also welcome participants from wider public services. Access varies by programme, with some open for individual booking through learn.hscni.net whilst others require organisational nomination. The Centre's philosophy emphasises that effective leadership is needed at all levels and is not restricted to those in designated leadership roles.
The HSC Graduate Training Scheme recruits annually, typically advertising positions in spring for September intake. Applicants require a minimum 2:2 degree in any discipline, or a professional degree-level or higher qualification related to health or management. You may apply for multiple pathways—including Management, Procurement and Logistics, IT Services, Engineering, and HR/Organisation Development—though each has separate selection processes. Applications are submitted through dedicated recruitment platforms, with successful candidates progressing through assessment centres and interviews. Monitor jobs.hscni.net and mts.hscni.net for recruitment announcements.
Nurses and midwives in Northern Ireland access multiple leadership development pathways. The Nursing and Midwifery Leadership and Management Programme, delivered through the HSC Leadership Centre, provides structured development for practitioners at various career stages. The Collective Leadership Framework for Nursing and Midwifery, launched in September 2024, provides a strategic framework with an Assessment Tool for self-evaluation. For senior practitioners at Band 8b and above, the Florence Nightingale Foundation Aspiring Directors programme, funded by the Department of Health Northern Ireland, specifically prepares nursing and midwifery leaders for board-level positions, with scholarships of up to £14,000 available.
Yes, doctors in training have access to dedicated leadership development programmes. The ADEPT (Achieve, Develop, Explore Programme for Trainees) Clinical Leadership Fellowship offers senior trainees a year-long opportunity to work alongside senior leaders in host organisations across Northern Ireland, developing leadership capabilities whilst undertaking specific improvement projects. The ENGAGE Clinical Leadership and Improvement Programme targets final year GP, Dental, and Specialty Trainees, using quality improvement as a vehicle for leadership development. Both programmes are managed through NIMDTA and require competitive application.
Acumen and Proteus target different organisational levels within the HSC leadership hierarchy. Acumen is designed for Directors, Medical Directors, and Associate Medical Directors—the most senior executive positions within HSC organisations. Proteus targets the tier immediately below: Assistant Directors at Bands 8b to 8d, Clinical Directors, Clinical Leads, and Specialty and Associate Specialist Doctors. Both programmes require organisational nomination rather than individual application, and both incorporate contemporary leadership research contextualised for Northern Ireland's health and social care challenges. Proteus includes a regional improvement project completed in teams, whilst Acumen focuses more heavily on strategic decision-making and system-level leadership.
The HSC Collective Leadership Strategy, launched in October 2017, fundamentally shapes all leadership development within HSCNI. The strategy establishes four components: leadership as everyone's responsibility, shared leadership in and across teams, interdependent and collaborative system leadership, and compassionate leadership. Every HSC Leadership Centre programme reflects these principles, moving away from hierarchical command-and-control models toward collaborative approaches that recognise leadership potential at every organisational level. The strategy emerged from extensive consultation involving over 400 contributors and has since informed the development of profession-specific frameworks, including the Collective Leadership Framework for Nursing and Midwifery.
Absolutely. HSCNI's collective leadership philosophy explicitly recognises that leadership is not restricted to those in designated leadership roles. Quality improvement programmes, including those delivered through HSCQI, provide leadership development opportunities for staff at all levels by engaging them in improvement projects where they can develop and demonstrate leadership capabilities. The HSC Leadership Centre offers management development programmes at various levels, and many organisations operate local leadership development initiatives. The Collective Leadership Framework's Assessment Tool enables any nursing or midwifery practitioner to evaluate and develop their leadership capabilities regardless of formal position.
HSCNI's approach to leadership development reflects a sophisticated understanding of what modern healthcare systems require. The challenges facing Health and Social Care Northern Ireland—financial pressures, workforce shortages, increasing demand, and the imperative for transformation—cannot be addressed through traditional top-down leadership alone. They require distributed leadership capacity, with professionals at every level able to identify opportunities, initiate improvements, and influence colleagues.
The HSC Collective Leadership Strategy provides the philosophical foundation for this approach, whilst the HSC Leadership Centre and its partner organisations deliver the practical programmes that build capability. From graduate entrants beginning their careers to executives shaping system strategy, from nurses developing ward-level leadership to doctors preparing for clinical director roles, the landscape offers development opportunities aligned with diverse needs and aspirations.
For those navigating this landscape, success requires proactive engagement. Understanding available programmes, connecting with organisational development teams, timing applications appropriately, and articulating clear development objectives all increase the likelihood of accessing valuable opportunities. The investment—in time, energy, and sometimes funding—pays dividends not merely in career advancement but in enhanced effectiveness, greater professional satisfaction, and ultimately better outcomes for the patients and service users whom HSCNI exists to serve.
Leadership development within HSCNI is not a destination but a journey. The programmes and pathways described here provide vehicles for that journey, but the driving force must come from individuals committed to their own development and to the collective enterprise of improving health and social care across Northern Ireland.
For the most current information on HSCNI leadership programmes, visit leadership.hscni.net or contact the HSC Leadership Centre at enquiries@leadership.hscni.net.