Meet the team

Each member of the MMF team has a wealth of experience in conflict management from professional backgrounds including medicine and law. They are passionate about sharing their knowledge and skills to help resolve conflict between families and health professionals and between colleagues working in health and social care.

Sarah Barclay, Founder and Director

Sarah

Sarah founded The Medical Mediation Foundation in 2010 and is its co-director. She is an accredited mediator, specialising in mediating disagreements between parents and health professionals about the care and treatment of children. She was the co-director of the pioneering Evelina Resolution project which piloted the use of mediation and conflict management training to clinical and non-clinical staff at the Evelina London Children’s Hospital. The project won the Mediation Programme of the year in the National Mediation Awards 2018 and has formed the evidence base for MMF’s Conflict Management Programme.

Sarah was voted an “NHS Innovator” by The Health Service Journal for her work on the Evelina project. She has a Masters degree in Medical Law and Ethics from King’s College London and is a former award winning BBC social affairs presenter.

 

Oscar Mathew, Director, Trainer and Mediator

Oscar

Oscar is a qualified barrister and mediator. He specialises in clinical team development, facilitation and workplace conflict resolution, helping teams to engage with difficult issues and bringing a balance of voices to a room.

Oscar is a former Senior Legal Adviser to the General Medical Council. He was involved in setting up a pioneering facilitated meeting pilot programme for the GMC called ‘Meetings With Doctors’. This involved meeting with doctors under investigation by the GMC in order to try to help them best respond to the allegations against them.

 

Dr Esse Menson, Mediator, Trainer and Coach

Esse

Esse became a consultant paediatrician in 2006 and accredited mediator in 2014. She gained a PhD in vaccine development research in 1989 before qualifying as a doctor from Bristol Medical School in 1994 then training in Melbourne, Australia and South East England to specialise in Infectious Diseases & Immunology. In 2012, she helped develop the Evelina Resolution Project with MMF while she was a consultant at the Evelina London Children’s Hospital.

Esse is one of the principal trainers working with MMF to deliver training and coaching in understanding and managing conflict to multidisciplinary health and social care professionals around the UK and internationally. She mediates conflicts in healthcare and workplace settings. Esse has been a course director for the Guy's & St Thomas' MRCPCH Clinical Examination Course in London since 2012 and is certificated in Compassion Training from the Centre for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, Stanford, USA (2019) and Mindful Self Compassion Training (Kristen Neff/Christopher Germer model), London, UK (2019).

 

Dr Claire Macaulay, Mediator, Trainer and Coach

Claire

Claire is an accredited mediator, trainer and executive coach. She qualified as a doctor from Liverpool University in 1999 and trained in Medical Oncology in Glasgow, picking up an MD along the way. She currently works as a Speciality Doctor in breast cancer at the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre.

Claire spent 10 years as a Medico-Legal Advisor with the Medical Defence Union, supporting and defending doctors during the most difficult time in their professional lives. A passionate educator and facilitator, Claire is an accomplished, highly sought-after trainer and public speaker, specialising in advanced communication skills. Claire is the National Education Lead for Realistic Medicine, advising the Scottish Government on the educational strategy for the implementation of Realistic Medicine. She is convinced that compassionate communication can transform relationships and resolve even the most intractable disputes.

 

Dr Clare Sieber, Mediator, Trainer and GP Mediator

Clare is a practising GP in West Sussex with a clinical interest in reproductive and sexual health. She qualified as a doctor from the University of Glasgow in 2009, and started working for Local Medical Committees, the statutory organisations that represent, support, and advise NHS GPs in 2016.

She subsequently gained a law degree from the University of Law and then became a CEDR-accredited commercial and workplace mediator so that she could pursue her passion of supporting GPs, Primary Care Networks and GP practice teams to resolve their disputes and interpersonal difficulties. She also delivers dispute resolution training to primary care staff.

 

Audrey Dorival, Mediator and Trainer

Audrey Dorival

Audrey Dorival is an accredited mediator. With over two decades of experience as one of the leading pioneers in education, health, and social care mediation, Audrey has earned a reputation in the field of disagreement resolution involving families, local authorities, and health providers.

With a diverse background encompassing law, training, special educational needs and disability (SEND), Audrey brings a unique and powerful skill set to her work. Her deep understanding of the dynamics and sensitivities involved in health disputes is a product of her extensive experience managing the award-winning KIDS SEND Mediation Service for twenty years and her lived experience as a carer. This knowledge compliments her pragmatic approach, developed when she practised law as commercial litigator with global law firm, Eversheds.

Audrey holds both the CEDR and SEND Mediator Accreditation.

Audrey is a highly experienced trainer and holds an Associate CIPD Level 5 qualification. She trains frontline public sector employees in conflict resolution to empower them to feel more confident to manage conflict and handle difficult conversations. Audrey is passionate about the importance of relationship building between families and health professionals. She has been an Associate Trainer with the National Children’s Bureau since 2006 supporting a wide range of Early Years professionals across the UK in their work with parents.

Audrey has a Master’s Degree in Law from the London School of Economics

 

Susan Macnaughton, Mediator, Trainer and Coach

Susan Macnaughton

Susan Macnaughton is an English and Hong Kong qualified solicitor who spent her legal career divided between London and Hong Kong. After becoming a partner in international firms Sinclair Roche & Temperley and Stephenson Harwood, she took a break from the law to start a family and qualify as a mediator and CEDR trained negotiator. In 2010 she joined boutique dispute firm, Gall Solicitors to head their mediation practice where she mediated a wide range of commercial and family disputes.

Since moving to Melbourne with her Australian husband in 2016, Susan has started her own mediation and conflict coaching firm, Dispute Logic. She is an accredited (Hong Kong and Australia) commercial and family mediator, and an Accredited Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner. In Australia, Susan has continued to mediate a mix of commercial and family matters. She is also a training coach for the Australian College of Law and Bond University family dispute resolution programmes.

Through her work with families Susan has seen how mediation can transform very difficult and emotional situations by removing the assumptions and misunderstandings which have driven conflict. Having observed how poor communication and lack of trust can impact families with sick children (or other family members), she has realised how important mediation is in the health field. Susan has become a passionate advocate for mediation between health teams and families, and for the availability of conflict training to health professionals. She currently provides conflict coaching to Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne to help staff identify cases where difficulties may have arisen and develop strategies to manage those cases in a way that supports the health team and the family.

 

Lisa Leppard, Trainer and MediatorLisa Leppard

Lisa qualified as a psychotherapist in 2016 and trained as a civil mediator in 2018.  She joined MMF as a training associate in 2021.

Lisa has been a neonatal nurse since 1990 and spent 22 years as a Family Support Lead Nurse at Southampton's Neonatal Unit.  She specialised in Palliative and end of life care and has been Thames Valley and Wessex Palliative Care Lead since 2014, working closely with the NHS and third party sector in the planning and delivering of training and education.

Lisa has worked as a Lead Care Co-ordinator for Thames Valley and Wessex Neonatal ODN since 2021, working to enhance the parent journey through neonatal care by supporting the development and embedding of Family Integrated Care across all units in Thames Valley and Wessex.

 

Arabella Tresilian, Mediator, Trainer and Coach

Arabella

Arabella is a CEDR-accredited mediator and conflict resolution trainer, specialising in health and social care. She is a fellow of the Q Community, the quality improvement initiative of the Health Foundation and NHS Improvement and serves as a Patient and Public Involvement adviser to the National Institute of Health Research’s Research Design Service. Arabella is also a Mental Health First Aid trainer with extensive experience of training private and public sector employees in preventing health-associated disputes and holding effective mental health conversations.

Using her lived experience as a patient and carer, combined with twenty years experience as a management consultant and educator, Arabella supports service providers, businesses, boards, hospitals, families and individuals in finding effective resolutions to complex disputes and relationship-breakdowns in health and social care settings. She has been featured as an advocate for positive mental health and autism awareness on BBC Radio 4’s Inside Health, the Financial Times, the British Medical Journal, Good Housekeeping and the King’s Fund.

 

Colin Fitzpatrick, Trainer and Mediator

Colin Fitzpatrick

Colin brings a considerable breadth and depth of experience to his work with MMF as a trainer and mediator. He was accredited as a mediator by CEDR in 2009 and by ILM in 2014. 

Colin has substantial experience of managing performance difficulties in practitioners. He has been a Senior Adviser for the Practitioner Performance Advice Service, a Clinical Director in both Primary Care and Prison Healthcare and a Deputy Medical Director in the largest health board in Wales as well as a GP in a wide range of clinical environments in the UK and abroad. He studied leadership at the Kennedy School in Harvard.

He has worked as a trainer in communication skills for the Medical Protection Society and delivered training for the Practitioner Performance Advice Service as well as within various health trusts and boards. He has a masters degree in education and led a team which received two National Training Awards.

 

Clair Dicker, Admin Manager

Clair Dicker

Clair runs the MMF office, dealing with enquiries, managing finances, organising training and liaising with clients. Organising people and projects is Clair’s speciality. Before working with MMF, Clair spent many years working as a senior PA to members of the executive team at BBC News and Radio One. Before that she worked in BBC Training, organising training for BBC journalists, scheduling courses and producing evaluation and monitoring reports for departmental budget holders.

 

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