We’re all very much aware of the increased pressure being placed on health and social care services in recent years. There is a general consensus that improvements are needed, yet despite this, health boards are slow to introduce these changes, which begs the question – Why?

Multiple factors, including current legislation and lack of financing are of course to blame. However, we suspect that a lack of effective leadership available within the sector is the major culprit.

Just this week an inspection report discovered nearly half (41 per cent) of community-based adult social care services were deemed as inadequate or in need of improvement in October 2014. The inspection, which was conducted by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), examined 8,170 services including hospice and residential social care services. The results were deemed ‘extremely worrying’ by the CQC’s chief inspector Andrea Sutcliffe with less than 1 per cent of the services examined classed as ‘outstanding’ and only 58 per cent considered ‘good’.

Whilst this is truly shocking, it is not the only proof of a lack of management and leadership within the sector. Just last month, it was revealed that the CQC received a colossal 150 claims of abuse to frail and elderly care residents every day. Surely a good leader would be aware of how their staff treat patients?

The fact that such issues remain prominent after years of media scrutiny and multiple attempts to transform the state of services, demonstrates that the right leaders are not in place to direct frontline workers.

The role of good leadership in the social care sector should not be taken lightly – a senior executive role comes a large amount of responsibility and requires strong sector and business knowledge to solve problems.

So should care organisations make more of an effort to use external recruiters to source the best leaders for the care sector? Let us know what you think on our Twitter page.