Making change happen takes leadership. Good leaders already exist in the NHS but making them the standard requires a significant shift in both our thinking and our actions. We have made great strides in achieving this over the past year but have some way to go. The NHS Leadership Awards are aligned to the National Leadership Council, which was created to underpin and champion the new priority attached to leadership in the NHS. The Council works at national level to support and develop high quality leadership, in concert with local and regional planning, with the goal of transforming leadership capacity and capability throughout the system.

Call for entries now open – Nominations close 28 May 2010

The NHS Leadership Awards aim to champion strong and creative leadership focused on improving quality for our patients. We want you to celebrate outstanding leaders working at every level in the NHS across England and help foster the leaders of the future from all backgrounds.

We launched the awards scheme in 2009, with seven categories recognising excellence in leadership. With an overwhelming response from the service and partner organisations, we received over three times as many nominations as expected. For the 2010 awards, we have revised the categories, adding three new ones and merging the Leader and Change Leader.

The nine 2010 categories are:

The NHS Board of the Year - new for 2010

The NHS Community Leader of the Year - new for 2010

The NHS Innovator of the Year

The NHS Award for Inspiration

The NHS Leader of the Year

The NHS Mentor of the Year

The NHS Newcomer of the Year - new for 2010

The NHS Partnership Award of the Year

The NHS Quality Champion of the Year

The 2009 NHS Quality Champion of the Year finalist, Dr Chris Harrison, from The Christie Hospital in Manchester said “I was delighted to be nominated for such a prestigious award. Leadership is the key to achieving our collective aims for health and healthcare and celebrating success through the awards process was in itself an inspirational experience”.

More information is available from NHS Leadership Awards website