Being Better, Together

Dr Tamsin Holland Brown is a paediatrician, innovator and clinical lead of the NHS ⁠Clinical Entrepreneur Programme⁠. She founded ⁠Hear Glue Ear⁠ - a device and app which is transforming the lives of children with temporary hearing loss. We invited Tamsin on the podcast so others could hear her amazing story of resilience and innovation. In this conversation we cover a range of topics, including: how innovation can be born from clinical insight; personal resilience and intrinsic motivation; the power of first followers and community; the wonderful concept of child-centred design; culture change through positivity and appreciation; and information about the Clinical Entrepreneur Programme.

Professor Jane O’Hara is one of the UK’s leading voices in patient safety research. Jane is a Professor at THIS (The Healthcare Improvement Studies) Institute at the University of Cambridge, and has a wealth of experience in helping us understand safety in healthcare. In this conversation we cover a host of topics, including escalation in maternity care; resilience engineering and safety-II approaches - moving beyond error focus to understanding real work; work as imagined vs work as done; using practical tools such as FRAM; opportunities and challenges with implementation of PSIRF, the importance of conversation and shared understanding, and much more.  

In this episode of the podcast, we speak with Greg Johnston—Chief Executive of Team Evie, a charity founded in memory of his daughter. Greg’s reflections on navigating paediatric intensive care as a parent offer not only personal insight, but a compelling framework for improving care, culture, and communication across the healthcare system. His "eight words" distil that experience into practical guidance for all of us.  There was so much wisdom in this conversation, we had to extend our recording time past the usual time limit in order to capture it all.  It was a pleasure to speak with Greg - we think you will find this conversation offers lessons worth carrying forward.

In this episode, we are in conversation with Dr Intikhab Zafurallah (Zaf). Zaf has a wide portfolio of work, including a huge contribution to charity work supporting the delivery of life-saving cardiac surgery to children for whom it would not normally be available. Zaf's sense of mission and commitment to equity come through very strongly in this conversation. We cover topics including Zaf's personal motivation behind his humanitarian work, the ethics of decision-making in different contexts, the emotional impact of high-risk healthcare in low resource settings, how joy can flourish amid hardship, the importance of getting to know your colleagues, how we can cross-pollinate learning across very different settings, Zaf's thoughts on mentorship and training, and more.

In this episode, we are in conversation with Marina Cantacuzino, MBE: founder of the Forgiveness Project (TFP) – a charity which aims to share stories of forgiveness to build hope, empathy and understanding. TFP is an inspiring endeavour and its outputs can be found in a number of different media from exhibitions, to podcasts, to books, to radio 4 shows.  All of these are characterized by stories from real people, showing how forgiveness can lead to reconciliation, understanding, restoration.  There are some powerful examples from healthcare in TFP work.  Perhaps not surprisingly, this conversation is as much about apology as it is about forgiveness.  Are they two sides of the same coin?  In some cases yes, ,but not always.  Marina also discusses the shadow-side of forgiveness and the concept of premature forgivenss – it’s not always appropriate …but if the conditions are right, forgiveness can lead to restoration, improved well-being, a shedding of bitterness, and sense-making.About Marina:Marina Cantacuzino MBE is an author, broadcaster, podcaster and peace activist.  In 2004, after working for 15 years as a journalist, and as a response to the invasion of Iraq, she founded The Forgiveness Project, a UK-based charity that works with personal narratives to help people break cycles of harm and create a more compassionate world. She has produced and hosted The F Word Podcast  and in 2024 her second BBC series Forgiveness: Stories from the Frontline was aired on Radio 4.  She is currently working on a third series. The latest of Marina’s three books on forgiveness, Forgiveness: An Exploration was published by Simon & Schuster in 2022.  

This is our conversation with Dr Rana Awdish. Rana is the author of "In Shock", a critically acclaimed, bestselling memoir based on her own critical illness. She is a sought-after public speaker, delivering inspirational keynote addresses to groups ranging from professional medical societies, to members of congress, to organisations combatting homelessness. A pulmonary and critical care physician, she serves as the current director of the pulmonary hypertension programme at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan.

In this episode, I am in conversation with Fran Ives.  Fran is a rare find in the NHS - she is a Human Factors specialist.  For reasons that are hard to understand, this important discipline is not more prevalent in the NHS.  In this conversation, you will hear about a host of topics related to Fran's work, and how it overlaps and interacts with LFE, including the vast scope of human factors work, the meaning of terms "erognomics", some learnings from other industries, the use of strengths-based inquiry, and a lot more.  I think this is an interesting and inspiring conversation - let us know what you think.Fran's podcast "All Systems Ergo" is available here: https://www.healthinnovationwestmidlands.org/our_work/all-systems-ergo-podcast-2/

Alison Jones is the Quality Improvement manager at the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit in Birmingham Children's Hospital. Alison has been a core member of the LFE movement since she was the project lead in the PRAISe project in 2017. Since then, she has adopted strengths-based methods into her current role. She is probably one of the leading experts in the use of Appreciative Inquiry in QI in healthcare, so there is a lot of wisdom imparted here as she reflects on her extensive experience of using this approach. We cover a range of topics, including Alison's practical definitions of AI and LFEQI, her thoughts on how and why this approach works, how to approach cynics, the fact that "soft skills" tend to underlie a great deal of excellent practice, reframing in various forms, safety-II and much more.

Dr Neil Spenceley is a paediatric intensivist in Glasgow, and a long-time friend of LFE.  We talk with Neil about a number of related topics including safety-II, understanding complexity, challenges in safety investigations, reductionism, the problem with aiming for “zero”, WAD vs WAI and a LOT more.  Neil is really knowledgeable in this area, and he explains his thoughts in an easy, listenable way.  As we often do in the conversations, we ran out of time, so stay tuned for a repeat conversation some time in the future. 

Paul Devlin is a member of NHSE Emergency Care Improvement Support team, and the co-founder of the NHS Kindness Network.  Paul spoke at our LFE5 conference last November on kindness, and we wanted to hear more from him.  In this conversation Paul talks about the “science” and “evidence” relating to the application of positive psychology to workplace culture and wellbeing.  He uses terms like “hyperdyadic spread” and “spontaneous trait transference”, which might sound like grand, academic concepts, but actually they point to underlying ideas which are highly intuitive and easy to practice.  Here is a link to the recording of Paul’s talk at LFE5 to open access (previously only available to delegates of the conference).  I highly recommend watching this presentation if you enjoyed Paul’s conversation. https://youtu.be/kkmjTcv8OM4

Mr Mo Belal is a consultant urological surgeon at University Hospitals, Birmngham (UHB). In 2021, Mo had a cycling accident and sustained a spinal cord injury. He tells the story of the accident and what he has learned from it - both professionally and personally. Mo's positivity and optimism shines through in this conversation. He shares insights from his experiences as a patient which can help us all as healthcare professionals, as well as more general thoughts about how to approach the inevitable challenges of life.

Dr Chris Turner is a consultant in Emergency Department at University Hospital, Coventry and co-founder of Civility Saves Lives. Chris has been a friend of Learning from Excellence for years, and he is the co-host of this podcast and our LfE conferences.  This episode of the podcast is a recorded conversation with Chris, talking to us from the recent Civility Saves Lives community event in Birmingham.  In this conversation we discuss the activities of the CSL community; how to avoid judgement when witnessing poor behaviour in the workplace; an overview of normative ethics and how this can help us understand behaviours; and a practical approach to provide feedback to a peer about poor conduct.  Chris cites the work of Jerry Hickson and the "coffee conversation", and reminds us of the "Baverstock manoeuvre", credited to Dr Anna Baverstock - another friend of LFE!

Doctor Dan Jones is a cognitive psychologist at Reading University.  Dan has been involved in the LFE community for many years.  He has studied LFE in healthcare, and has implemented LFE in an academic setting in his university.  In this conversation (recorded live at our monthly LFE community call) we discuss Dan's recent paper on staff perceptions of LFE in the hospital setting, along with a host of other related topics including the negativity bias, the impact of public vs private positive feedback, the differences between written and verbal feedback, the pros and cons of standardisation of LFE, the problems with defining excellence, Dan's experiences of implementing LFE in a university setting, and other topics.

Dr Anna Baverstock is a consultant in community child health, and also a coach, mediator and schwarz round facilitator.  In this conversation, we discuss a range of topics relating to Anna’s work, including definitions of wellbeing; approaches to challenging conversations; mediation in healthcare; differentiating kindness from “niceness”; feedback and radical candour; how to encourage diversity in teams; and much more. Anna's suggested reading list related to the topics in this conversation: Brené Brown - Atlas of the heart (Hear Anna's podcast on this book: Atlas of the Heart (buzzsprout.com) Kim Scott - Radical Candor Stone & Heen - Thanks for the Feedback Amy Edmundson - The Fearless Organisation  Daniel Coyle - The Culture Code  Marshall Rosenberg - non violent communication Amanda Ripley - High Conflict Adam Grant - Think Again Timothy Clarke - 4 stages of psychological safety Trzeciak & Mazzarelli - Compassionomics

This episode is a recording of a converwith Dr Bob Klaber. Bob is a paediatrician, and director of strategy, research and innovation at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust in London. Bob also leads an initiative called Kindness in Healthcare, a global community of healthcare professionals who come together once a month to discuss and reflect on kindness in healthcare. In this conversation we touch on a few areas, including:  The work of Professor Leonard Berry in characterising kindness and healthcare, and demonstrating its benefits in terms of patient outcomes.  Why and how we should measure kindess. The impact of role-modelling on the behaviour of others.   How to tackle unkind behaviours without being hostile.  And much more...  Along the way we draw parallels and shared learning with the work of Learning from Excellence and Civitlity Saves Lives. Some references from the conversation: An example of Prof Len Berry's work: "Getting the measure of kindness", Carnegie UK.

This episode is a recording of our conversation with Janet Leighton, the "Director of Happiness" at Timpson's. In this conversation, Janet and Adrian discuss the origin of this role and what it involves, as well as many of the initiatives Timpsons have put in place to support their staff. They also discuss the Happy Index: Timpson's only Key Performance Indicator (KPI). Although Timpson's is a private company, we think there is much we can learn and apply from their approach to working in the NHS. It is clear that Timspons's promote staff autonomy, recognise and appreciate success, and offer support to staff during challenging times. It sounds like a good place to work.

Dr Camilla Kingdon is a consultant neonatologist, and the current president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH).  In this interview we discuss Camilla's plans as RCPCH president; how to handle unprofessional behaviours and incivility; the concept of intelligent kindness; the negativity bias; Desmond Tutu and the concept of Ubuntu; compassionate leadership; wellbeing; and the importance of rediscovering and reconnecting with our original motivations to do the work we do.  An abridged recording of this conversation was played at the #LfE4 conference in October 2021.

Suzette Woodward has had a distinguished career in healthcare – in the clinical world as a PICU nurse, and then in a number of positions in patient safety, including a director role at the National Patient Safety Agency and as lead for the Sign up to Safety initiative.  In this conversation, Suzette reflects on her career in safety, and discusses opportunities for the future.  We cover a lot of topics, including: how to define safety; what constitutes good leadership; what we mean by culture; how safety-II 'fits' in the wider safety landscape; Vincent and Amalberti's 3-part model of safe systems (ultra-safe / high reliability / ultra-adaptive) and much more.  There are many highlights in this conversation, and there is a clear golden thread of compassion throughout Suzette’s career – she articulates a very clear desire to help others as the main motivation for her work.  Suzette reminds us that the reason we do this work is to help others, and that the envelope of concern includes the staff / colleagues as well as the patients.

Margaret Moore, MBA is the chair and co-founder of the Institute of Coaching: a non-profit organisation at McLean University, which aims to enhance "the integrity and credibility of the field of coaching".  This is a fascinating, wide-ranging conversation in which we discuss a broad scope of topics related to coaching, appreciative inquiry, and positive psychological approaches to our work and lives.  The conversation topics include: the role of coaching in healthcare (for patients and for professionals); the academic rigour behind coaching, and its growing evidence base; reflections on Learning from Excellence / Appreciative Inquiry and how this compares and contrasts with coaching; the elements of psychological capital - Hope Efficacy Resilience Optimism; burnout and wellbeing; and plenty more. The book referenced by Margaret in the conversation (Coaching in Medical Education) is available here.

Professor Don Berwick, MD, MPP, FRCP, KBE, is President Emeritus and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI).  This podcast episode is a recording of the live conversation with Don from the penultimate session in the #LfE4 conference, October 2021.  Don speaks about his career, his reflections on his paper about the three eras of healthcare, and what he thinks we can do to make healthcare better before answering some questions posed by the audience.   Here are some links to some of the content from the conversation: Summary of the Era 3 paper The Moral Determinants of Health Dr W Edwards Deming's red bead experiment