If you are responsible for managing resources, or commissioning or delivering health services, you should have detailed knowledge of how management processes work… You must make sure that you are competent and have the necessary training or advice for any financial responsibilities that are part of your role… If you have a management role or responsibility, you will often have to make judgements about competing demands on available resources. When making these decisions, you must consider your primary duty for the care and safety of patients. If you are concerned about how management decisions might conflict with your primary duty to patients, you must take steps to manage or deal with any conflict – e.g. asking for colleagues’ advice, declaring the conflict to your board or other decision-making body, asking for advice from external professional or regulatory bodies, including defence organisations, if necessary… If you are responsible for managing and allocating funds or resources, you must make sure that they are used for the purposes they were intended for and are clearly and properly accounted for. You should also make sure that appropriate professional services, including audits, are commissioned when necessary. You should make sure there are adequate systems in place to monitor financial and management information. You must make sure that there are appropriate systems in place to make sure that actual or perceived conflicts of interests are managed in an open way…
If, as a member of a board or similar body, you are concerned that a decision would put patients or the health of the wider community at risk of serious harm, you should raise the matter promptly with the chair. You must also ask for your objections to be formally recorded and you should consider taking further action in line with GMC guidance in Raising and Acting on Concerns about Patient Safety.
- Patient safety may be affected if there is not enough medical cover. So you must take up any post you have formally accepted, and work your contractual notice period before leaving a job, unless the employer has reasonable time to make other arrangements.