Key skills for listening and responding to parental concerns

Thursday 9th October 2025, 1pm - 3pm (BST)

Virtual

Martha’s Rule is now being piloted across the NHS. Our two hour interactive workshop will provide you with the skills to recognise and acknowledge parental and patient concerns and the confidence to manage your own responses when a parent, patient or family member is angry or upset.

Listening to understand isn’t always easy. This course will show you how to do it well in a high pressure clinical environment.

Course Content:

• What is a parental or patient concern and how to respond

• Key skills for acknowledging and responding to a parent or family member who is angry, frightened or upset

• How to listen to understand, not to challenge or fix

• How to understand and manage your own responses in difficult situations

Course Details:

• Format: Online via Zoom

• Duration: 2 hours

• Cost: £55 (VAT inclusive)

Testimonials:

“I found this so extremely helpful.  I feel more confident in identifying cues and addressing concerns more head on”  Staff Nurse

“Really helpful.  Love that it’s a 2 hour bitesize course and the facilitators make everyone comfortable to participate”  Resident doctor

 

Course faculty:

Sarah Barclay, Founder and Director

Sarah is the founder of The Medical Mediation Foundation and an accredited mediator specialising in mediating disagreements between parents and health professionals about the care and treatment of children. MMF provides mediation and conflict management training to support health professionals to recognise and manage conflict. 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. Since 2010, MMF has trained more than 11,000 health professionals in managing conflict in the UK and internationally.

Sarah has a Masters degree in Medical Law and Ethics from King’s College London and is a former award winning journalist, author and BBC social affairs presenter.

Dr Esse Menson, Mediator, Trainer and Coach

Esse is an OCN-accredited mediator and conflict resolution trainer, specialising in resolving disputes in health and social care commissioned by NHS trusts, GP practices, legal advisers, families and individuals. In healthcare mediation, she supports parties to reach effective resolutions to complex disputes or relationship-breakdowns and her experience includes patient - health professional mediation and conflict coaching / parent - health professional mediation / end of life decision-making mediation / multi-agency disputes – healthcare: social care: family disputes / colleague – colleague mediation / team recalibration and development support.

Esse was a consultant paediatrician at a leading London children’s hospital and has experience of healthcare disagreements from the patient / parent perspective and their impacts. She was the co-director of the pioneering Evelina Resolution project which piloted the use of mediation and conflict management training to staff at the Evelina London Children’s Hospital. She is a principle trainer on the courses delivered by MMF across the UK and internationally, and is co-author of the e-learning courses MMF has produced for NHS-England.