Alliance Manchester Business School has partnered with Northern Care Alliance NHS Group to launch the Group’s first senior leader development programme. The programme, which is being funded via the Group’s payments to the Apprenticeship Levy, will support nearly 50 of its future leaders through health-focused Global MBA and MSc Management Practice courses.

Operating in a high-pressure sector means healthcare managers face a constant battle to balance excellent clinical care with effective operational performance. As Trusts are pushed to meet ever tougher targets, strong leadership teams that combine clinical and managerial expertise are key to performance improvement.

Senior leader apprenticeship programmes are carefully crafted and combine academic class activities with practical workplace learning. The degree level courses will equip already experienced staff with the skills and confidence to make decisions that meet both clinical and managerial demands.

Commenting on the partnership, Diane Hooper, resource lead at Northern Care Alliance said: "Within the NHS we have some very talented people who are clinicians by background. However when they progress in their careers, they find themselves in management positions without any actual management qualifications.

"These people are going to be our leaders of the future. They’re the people we are investing in so we can retain their skills within our organisation to drive our Trusts forward."

The first cohorts of the MBA and MSc Northern Care Alliance courses began their studies earlier this month with the 46 level seven apprentices expected to complete their studies over the next two years. During this time MBA students will study modules which have been officially endorsed by the NHS while MSc students will study six core modules and two further healthcare electives in a combination of classroom and on-the-job learning.

Dr David Lowe, Programme Director of MSc Management Practice at Alliance Manchester Business School, added: "We have a great deal of experience working with different organisations to carefully craft a programme of study to suit their specific industry and workplace needs. Healthcare is a sector like no other with unique challenges so it’s important that we’ve been able to incorporate relevant modules into the programme to reflect this.

"Many NHS managers are highly skilled and qualified in their clinical areas, but when it comes to commercial decisions and line management responsibilities, they need more support. Management is a discipline in its own right that requires an entirely different skill set."

Xavier Duran Martinez, Director, MBA Programmes, concluded, "These courses represent a strategic way for the Northern Care Alliance NHS Group to use Apprenticeship Levy funding to unlock the potential of rising stars and managers while meeting the specific needs of the organisation and preparing it for the future."

Global MBA students will choose three electives from AMBS’s suite of 20 MBA electives with both cohorts having the option of choosing two specialist healthcare electives including Organisational Behaviour and Leading People with Purpose and Leading Organisations through Process and Systems Improvement.

Alliance MBS collaborates with a wide range of organisations, including the NHS, BAE Systems and Audi UK, to build bespoke programmes that gear them up for the future. Over the past 10 years, more than 20,000 executives, and their employers, have benefited from the School’s rigorous Executive Education programmes.

As an official provider of level 7 apprenticeships, Alliance Manchester Business School can help organisations make effective use of their apprenticeship levy payments both on an individual basis in the open cohorts and via specifically tailored closed cohorts for groups of students from one organisation.