Launching a senior leadership alumni community across health and social care

27/04/2026 -

Jess Elsey is Head of Programme for the Leading to Change team at Public Services Delivery Scotland.

We’ve been talking a lot about spaciousness in our team recently and the importance of finding time to reflect, focus on the meaning behind what we do, learn, and be creative as much as getting the job done.  Megan Reitz delivered a Leading to Change masterclass on this recently.  Her message, unsurprisingly, was that we often focus more on task and achieving our goals at the expense of finding space for reflection, being creative, and learning.  And that if we found more time for the latter, we’d be more effective in getting the job done. This rang true for me as much as it probably does for many others. The irony that I’ve been too busy to find the time to write this blog until the quiet Easter week has also not been lost on me!

My reflection on spaciousness made me think of the alumni event for senior leaders that was held on 5 March.  It brought together a group of about 50 leaders from across health, social care and social work who have participated in a range of Leading to Change and other leadership development programmes over the past seven or eight years.  It was designed, by a group of alumni themselves with support from the Leading to Change team, to provide leaders with an opportunity to come together, pause, and take some time to reflect on what’s important right now and what, as a collective, they could focus on to support positive change and improvement across the system.  It’s hoped that the community and events like this will offer alumni the time and space to do this – we were hoping, with this event, to create some spaciousness for the group.

The event was chaired by Christine McLaughlin, Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Chief Executive, NHS Scotland, Scottish Government and Pippa Milne, Chief Executive, Argyll & Bute Council, Chair of SOLACE Scotland and SOLACE Leadership Lead. Speakers included Andrew Thomson, Chief Executive, Carr Gomm; Ross McGuffie, Chief Executive, NHS Forth Valley and colleagues Fiona Struthers and Louise McGuire; and Karen Hedge, Deputy Chief Executive, Scottish Care.

Colleagues shared that it’s “all about relationships” and the role of relationship-building in ensuring that collaborative leadership and working are genuinely valued. The tension between performance, governance, financial decision-making and collaborative leadership was also raised though, and some reflection shared on the need to balance these more effectively.

After a question and answer session with the panel and a discussion about the future of the senior leadership community – which people felt is important but needs to focus on real work issues to make more effective use of the time together – the day ended with some reflections from the chairs and others and what they’d ask of the group.  Christine stressed the need to have a sense of self belief, take risks, and be as brave as you can be.  Pippa suggested we need to reset the outcomes we are seeking and focus on inequality and population health. And Ross emphasised the need to be brave, to think differently and outside the box, to hold yourself to account, and to take up those opportunities for collaboration.  He also suggested that if we focus on doing the right things, that performance will take care of itself.

As well as thinking about how we find more space and create more spaciousness, I’ve also been doing some reading recently about hopeful leadership and delivered a Leading for Change session on this at the end of March.  A key element of hopeful leadership is the development of relationships that provide you with energy.  There was a real sense of energy in the room at the alumni community event. People had given up their very precious time to be there and connect with other senior leaders and seemed to value the time to learn and develop more together in a safe and trusted space. The need to focus on real and complex system challenges as a leadership community was highlighted at several points over the day, as well as the understanding that collaborative thinking, experimentation and learning together will support the group to address these.  We hope that the development of this leadership community will support people to find the space to do this, to further develop those relationships that provide energy, and to collaborate on a deeper and more meaningful level in support of meeting outcomes for the people we serve.

Jess Elsey

Role:

Head of Programme for the Leading to Change team at Public Services Delivery

Jess Elsey is the Head of Programme for the Leading to Change team at NHS Education for Scotland (NES). Leading to Change offers a range of leadership development programmes, opportunities and support for health, social care, and social work leaders to help them make a difference. This includes helping people to learn more about, and reflect on the use of, different types and styles of leadership. She loves her job and has been in this role for almost a year. Prior to that she was Head of Workforce Policy and Planning at the Scottish Social Services Council. She’s led on, and supported, leadership development activity at a strategic and operational level across social care, social work, early learning and childcare, and health for over fifteen years and is passionate about supporting people at all levels to acknowledge, understand and develop their leadership capability. Prior to working at a national level, Jess was the training manager for a large third sector organisation that provided care, support and education for children, young people and adults. She is a member of the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development, the professional body for HR and people development. Her particular interests are leadership development, inclusive leadership, workforce wellbeing, and quality improvement. In her spare time she likes spending time with her family and friends, making quilts, and she collects gnomes!

---

All information regarding our contributors was correct at the time of publishing.