Mediation Skills for Senior Healthcare Professionals

1st - 23rd April 2027

Conflict and communication breakdown between healthcare providers, patients, families and colleagues is time-consuming and stressful. It can also have a significant impact on the delivery of clinical care and staff and family well-being.

This course will equip you with the key communication and mediation skills you need to manage conflict and empower you to build trusting and collaborative relationships with parents, families and clinical colleagues in a pressurised healthcare environment.

As Martha’s Rule is being rolled out across the NHS, the course will also give you effective skills and strategies for listening and responding to parental concerns.

RCPCH has approved this activity for CPD in accordance with the current RCPCH CPD Guidelines.

Apply

Complete the short application form

Places are limited to 10 participants.

The faculty review all applications on receipt. Once accepted, a 10% deposit is payable to secure your place.

Why this course?

Expert Instruction: Delivered by a team with extensive experience and a proven track record in providing conflict management training to more than 12,000 healthcare professionals in the NHS and internationally.
Comprehensive Curriculum: Aligns with the RCPCH Progress curriculum, covering key competencies in communication, professional values, leadership and team working.
Virtual Convenience: Learn from anywhere with interactive Zoom sessions, tailored for busy healthcare professionals.
Who should attend? Senior paediatric healthcare professionals from any discipline or role - multi-disciplinary participation will enhance your learning

Course Content:

The dynamics of conflict escalation in paediatric settings.
Essential mediation skills for managing conflict at various levels of severity.
The importance of listening in preventing conflict and building trust.
Preparing for and navigating difficult conversations with patients, families, and colleagues.
Understanding the neurophysiology and psychological effects of conflict on healthcare providers.
Techniques for self-regulation in conflict.
Identifying and addressing biases and assumptions in conflict.
Understanding and improving your personal approach to conflict to manage relationships with colleagues and improve team dynamics

Course Details

Format: Online via Zoom.
Duration: 10 x four hour sessions (09:00–13:00 UK time).
Cost: £1,500 (VAT inclusive).

Please note: This course does not accredit you to be a mediator but it will provide you with mediation skills and strategies to use when managing conflict with patients, families and colleagues.

Testimonials from 2026 Course participants:

“I had been excited to start this training, and it certainly delivered. I wish all HCPs in the NHS could undertake this training as it was invaluable. Learning advanced listening and communication skills, alongside having observed practice of these skills was particularly valuable” Gemma Saint, Respiratory, Sleep & LTV Paediatric Consultant (Liverpool)

“A key set of skills that should be taught to every health care professional” Helen Aspey, Consultant, Paediatric Palliative Care

“Having been involved, and witness to many conflicts within the NHS between families and clinicians, and conflicts with colleagues I felt I needed a way of trying to make sense of what was happening. I wanted to equip myself with potential strategies to improve my own communication and mediation skills in order to help navigate and resolve issues within my Department and in the wider Trust/organisation. The impact on patients and families is huge, as is the burden on clinical staff I needed to see a better way. This course provided exactly that.” Anna

“I wish the medical mediation foundation had come into my professional life earlier as the knowledge and skills learnt on this course are invaluable for practice in our complex clinical world. Would recommend this course to everyone regardless of career stage” Clare, Paediatrician/ Clinical Lead (Christchurch, NZ)

“This was an outstanding training, led with thoughtfulness, skill, and care. I’d really recommend this to colleagues in healthcare, there is so much value this training can add, even to experienced people”. Charlie Jones, Consultant Clinical Psychologist (Bristol)

“I gained so much from this course and feel far more comfortable managing the inevitable conflicts that occur in healthcare, no matter what stage I meet the conflict at. The environment created was supportive and adaptive giving us the space necessary to learn. Truly the course that has stayed with me the longest and am already incorporating the learnings into my day to day life.” Lisa, (Dublin)

“This course was amazing- really learned a lot. I thought this would expand my communication skillset but it really taught me a whole new way to manage conflict with curiosity and compassion. The course also offers time to practice and learn from fellow course members which was invaluable in the journey.” Stacey, Paediatric Nurse Practitioner (Evelina, London)

Course dates and Session times (all 09.00-13.00 UK time)

Week	Day	Date
1	Thursday	1st April
	Friday	2nd April
2	Monday	5th April
	Wednesday	7th April
	Friday	9th April
3	Tuesday	13th April
	Thursday	15th April
4	Monday	19th April
	Wednesday	21st April
	Friday	23rd April

Course faculty

Sarah Barclay, Founder and Director

Sarah Barclay

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 12,000 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 Menson

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.

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.

Complete the application form