Leadership and the everyday practice of Consultant Radiographers in the UK: Transformational ideals and the generation of self-efficacy

Reflections on leadership in advanced and consultant radiographic practice within the UK

INTRODUCTION

This Educational Perspective provides an overview of how leadership fits into advanced and consultant radiographic roles within the UK setting. It draws on research in the area as well as reviewing some of the wider healthcare literature beyond the medical radiation sciences. The reflections outlined suggest how leadership at these levels may look and differ in practice.

DISCUSSION

Leadership should be seen as fundamental to practice and not necessarily a discreet element to either role, but one that supports all other areas. The proportion of the role that leadership takes up, along with the degree of influence, increases from advanced to consultant practice. Consideration over conflict with management and leadership within roles is also important. Ultimately leadership is about relationships with people, for which interpersonal skills are required, along with establishing networks, supported by training and development to maximise effectiveness.

CONCLUSION

A clearer understanding of leadership is needed to help conceptualise and measure its impact at advanced and consultant levels of practice. The content is intended to provide an opportunity for reflection and discussion around the topic, serving as a development tool in practice.

Charting the practical dimensions of understaffing from a managerial perspective: The everyday shape of the UK's sonographer shortage

INTRODUCTION

Across the last two decades, ultrasound services in many healthcare sectors have become increasingly pressurised as a consequence of upsurging demand and difficulties in recruiting viable clinicians. Indeed by 2013, the UK government's Migration Advisory Committee had listed sonography as an official 'shortage specialty'. Comparatively little research has to date, however, explored the impacts of this situation upon the departments themselves, and the individuals working therein. The core purpose of this study is, thus, to lend qualitative depth to current understandings of the frontline situation in the UK's ultrasound units, many of which are understaffed, from the perspective of their managers.

METHODS

Using a thematic analysis informed by a Straussian model of Grounded Theory, N = 20 extended accounts provided by ultrasound department leads in public (n = 18) and private (n = 2) units were explored.

RESULTS

Four global themes emerged from the analysis of which the first two (the broadly sociological matters) are described in this paper. Theme 1 addresses how a lack of staff in the broader ultrasound economy has created a troublesome migratory system in contemporary UK ultrasound. Theme 2 addresses how this economy works chiefly to the advantage of the most junior and the most senior clinicians, often leaving mid-career professionals in the borderline impossible situation of having to concurrently occupy both junior and senior roles.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings ideally open up debate on some key practical contingencies of the UK's sonographer shortage, and reflect upon literature regarding the nuanced aspects of a shifting healthcare workplace constitution.