How Leadership Programmes for Medical Staff Delivered in Hospital Settings Are Evaluated: A Scoping Review

Background Leadership capability among medical staff is increasingly recognised as essential for improving patient outcomes, staff satisfaction, organisational performance, and healthcare system resilience (Flaig et al., 2020). Hospitals invest significantly in leadership development programmes (LDPs) targeting medical practitioners including junior doctors, registrars, consultants, clinical directors, and physician leaders. However, despite widespread implementation, there is considerable variation in how these programmes are evaluated, including evaluation frameworks used, tools applied, outcomes measured, level of evidence reported, and the integration of qualitative versus quantitative approaches (Phillipson et al., 2025). Understanding how such leadership programmes are evaluated is essential to ensure quality, demonstrate impact, guide future programme design, and establish best practice for workforce capability planning. Rationale Existing reviews focus on leadership interventions broadly, conflating programmes for nurses, allied health, and managers. There is limited synthesis focusing specifically on medical staff within hospital settings and even less clarity regarding evaluation methods used. A scoping review is therefore warranted to map evaluation approaches, identify gaps, and inform more robust evaluation frameworks for hospital-based medical leadership programmes. Objective To systematically map and describe how leadership programmes aimed at medical staff in hospital settings are evaluated, including evaluation models, metrics, study designs, data collection methods, outcomes, and reporting quality.