Developing leaders for the health service of the future: the experience in Ireland

How can we identify and then develop the people who will provide the leadership in our health services in the next ten to fifteen years? That was the question the Office of Health Management addressed in 1997. The paper outlines the leadership competencies used to select the participants and indicate how they were developed. It will also describe the programmes content and design, the issues that arose in the course of the programme and the evaluation framework. It concludes with an assessement of the obstacles the potential young leaders are likely to encounter and gives an indication of how it is proposed to continue to support these young people in the future.