ONLINE: Compassionate Leadership and Teamworking with Prof Michael West CBE

Compassionate Leadership and Teamworking in health and social care: Making it happen

Timings and Registration‍

8th June 2026

22nd June 2026

9.30 - 13.00 (UK BST) each session

This workshop will be 7 hours towards your CPD, and you will receive a certificate of attendance shortly after the workshop via email. This workshop will be recorded.

This workshop is priced at a flat rate of £135.00.

For those in difficult financial circumstances, who may struggle to afford this price, please contact hello@compassionatemind.co.uk

Level: Beginner

About this Course

The workshops will focus on how we develop high quality care cultures in health and social care. It focused on the development of compassionate leadership and teamworking. It will be highly interactive, with much time for discussion and questions. Practical tools and inspiring examples will be shared.

Session 1: June 8th

Topics will include:

• Compassionate leadership for high quality care cultures
• Cultures of high-quality care for patients and staff
• What is compassionate leadership and why is it essential in healthcare?
• Four behaviours of compassionate leadership - Compassionate leadership - Evidence of outcomes
• Leaning into pain – difficult behaviours and conflict:

Compassionate leadership is effective, inclusive and collective

Leading compassionate and effective teams

• What is a real team?

· Why do we need to develop team and inter-team working in healthcare?

• Four levels of compassionate teamworking

-Intra-individual

-Inter-individual

-Whole team

-Inter-team.

Session 2: June 22nd

Topics will include

• Compassionate leadership and innovation

-How compassionate leadership enables innovation and quality improvement

-What helps innovation success? What are the barriers?

• Compassionate leadership is meeting core human needs

-Stress and burnout in health services

-Critique of stress management strategies in organizations

-Three core needs and the eight areas of action

1. Authority, empowerment and influence

2. Justice and fairness

3. Work conditions and working schedules

4 Teamworking

5 Culture and leadership

6 Workload

7 Management and supervision

8 Education, learning and development

• The centrality of leadership self-compassion

Key references:

West, M. A. (2021). Compassionate leadership: Sustaining wisdom, humanity and presence in health and social care. London: The Swirling Leaf Press.

What Is Compassionate Leadership? | The King's Fund

West, M. A. (2025). Simply being: A guide to meditation. London: The Swirling Leaf Press.

West, M., & Coia, D. (2019). Caring for doctors, caring for patients. London: General Medical Council.

West, M., Bailey, S., & Williams, E. (2020). The courage of compassion. Supporting Nurses and Midwives to Deliver High-Quality Care. London: The King’s Fund, London.

West, M., Eckert, R., Collins, B., & Chowla, R. (2017). Caring to change. How compassionate leadership can stimulate innovation in health care. London, UK: The King's Fund.

Workshop Leader:

Michael West CBE is Senior Visiting Fellow at The King’s Fund, London and Professor of Organisational Psychology at Lancaster University, Visiting Professor at University College, Dublin, and Emeritus Professor at Aston University.

He graduated from the University of Wales in 1973 and was awarded a PhD in 1977 for research on the psychology of meditation. He has authored, edited and co-edited 21 books and has published more than 200 articles in scientific and practitioner publications on teamwork, innovation, compassionate leadership, and culture, particularly in healthcare. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, the American Psychological Association (APA), the Academy of Social Sciences. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow and an Honorary Fellow of Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery. He is a member of the Advisory Council of The Global Compassion Coalition.

He co-chaired with Dame Denise Coia, the two-year inquiry on behalf of the UK General Medical Council into the mental health and well-being of doctors Caring for Doctors, Caring for Patients (2019). He led the review for The King’s Fund (commissioned by the RCN Foundation) into the mental health and well-being of nurses and midwives across the UK, The Courage of Compassion: Supporting Nurses and Midwives to Deliver High Quality Care (2020). His latest book (2021) is Compassionate leadership: Sustaining wisdom, humanity and presence in health and social care (London: Swirling Leaf Press). He supports many health care and other public sector organisations internationally to develop compassionate, high quality care cultures.

He was appointed a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2020 for services to compassion and innovation in healthcare..