Medical Mediation Foundation

26/08/2025

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

Register for our two hour workshop taking place via Zoom on Thursday 9th October, 1pm - 3pm (BST)

https://www.medicalmediation.org.uk/events/38-key-skills-for-listening-and-responding-to-parental-concerns-supporting-marthas-rule/

14/01/2025

The dates are fixed for this year's Mediation Skills course. During 10 half days between April 28th and May 23rd 2025, our expert faculty convene over Zoom to teach an in-depth curriculum based on key communication and mediation skills to manage conflict and build trusting and collaborative relationships with patients, families and clinical colleagues.

Learn how to manage conflict at various levels of severity within a healthcare setting, improve your listening skills to prevent conflict and build trust, and improve your personal approach to conflict to manage relationships with colleagues and improve team dynamics.

As hospitals and healthcare professionals prepare to roll out Martha's Rule across the NHS, the course will empower you with skills and strategies for listening and responding to parental concerns.

Places are limited and open to senior healthcare professionals

Read more via the link and apply now

https://www.medicalmediation.org.uk/events/36-mediation-skills-for-senior-paediatric-health-professionals/

Conflict and communication breakdown between healthcare providers, 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.

04/09/2024

October colleagues course: Book now to boost your skills in managing conflict - https://mailchi.mp/5b76210a12f7/mmf-building-better-teams-in-healthcare

29/08/2024

How do you interact with your team? Do you know the difference between destructive conflict and constructive disagreement? Would you like to move towards an active, more structured approach to resolving differences with colleagues?

Work interactions can have a profound effect on health and wellbeing and research shows that staff health and wellbeing has a direct link to the quality of care received by patients (Maben et al, 2012)

Learn strategies for having better conversations with colleagues and identify and manage conflict as it arises to create a positive organisational culture and supportive teams in health and social care.

"Fantastic course" CNS
"This should be mandatory!" Consultant

Book now for a place on 23rd October, 9am - 4pm taking place via Zoom.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/resolving-conflict-with-colleagues-in-healthcare-tickets-837531157237

Send a message to learn more

20/05/2024

A pleasure to be speaking at this year's APA Conference at the wonderful Sage, Gateshead. Our session on 'why recognising and managing conflict between families and healthcare providers really matters' has been well received by a fantastic audience from around the globe. The whole programme has been brilliantly put together with fascinating insights from all of the speakers today. More workshops take place tomorrow.

Find out more at the APAconferences website

photo credit:

16/05/2024

Acknowledging mental health awareness week at MMF.

Aside from our training in mediation skills and managing conflict we also help train healthcare providers with skills for self care. GREEN TIMES is an acronym we often come back to in our training to remind healthcare professionals to take care of themselves. So what is it?

Green time: Nature - gardening - house plants
Read: light and enjoyable material
Exercise gently: walk - swim - yoga
Eat: Nourishing food, indulgent food
Nurture yourself: comfort

Trust things can get better
Include people who care about you
Mindfulness: meditate/ breath work
Entertainment - especially including laughter
Sing - vagal stretch

Most of all - be kind to yourself!

12/04/2024

Goodbye to the fabulous teams Starship Children's Health and Christchurch Hospital New Zealand. We have loved working with you ❤️ Stay in touch and keep using the skills! 🙏

26/03/2024

What makes a parent start to lose trust in the health professionals who are looking after their child?

Read MMF Director Sarah's Barclay's short blog 'Please don't tell me not to worry' with advice and simple strategies to help communicate and empathise with worried parents and families.

What makes a parent start to lose trust in the health professions who are looking after their child? Three things stand out for me in the many conversations I’ve had with parents in my professional life, both as a medical journalist and as a medical mediator:

14/03/2024

Managing disagreements and conflict between family and clinical teams is one of the key priorities in the year ahead, as confirmed by Carli Whittaker, PCCS president, on closing the recent Edinburgh Paediatric Critical Care Conference. From the numerous, seemingly ‘minor’ daily tensions at the bedside - (incidents that are in the “Green Zone” of the MMF conflict pathway) - through to the extreme, rarer but not insignificant number of cases which end in court. Each conflict takes its toll: on staff, on their ability to deliver the quality of care they aspire to, on parents and families, and on the care the child receives.

Optimising skills in navigating disagreements effectively and appropriately with confidence and compassion is what we teach at MMF. Our courses can be delivered virtually to your teams and our e-learning module is now available to download with free access to NHS staff.

"I cannot recommend highly enough this excellent online training. It should be compulsory for anyone working in PICU (and other areas" Professor Stephen Playfor, Consultant Paediatric Intensivist.

Find out more about the MMF Conflict Pathway on our website which is also full of useful videos, blogs and guides, or get in touch.

https://www.medicalmediation.org.uk/training-conflict-management/

The Medical Mediation Foundation Conflict Management Programme has been developed and tested since 2010 based on initial research funded by a Department of Health programme designed to support children’s palliative care projects.

12/03/2024

A very warm welcome down under for MMF Director, Oscar Mathew and Senior Associate, Dr Esse Menson ☀️ working with the awesome teams at the children’s hospital at Westmead in Sydney

05/03/2024

How much do you understand about medical mediation?

When a relationship breaks down with a patient or their family, you may feel a range of emotions including frustration, anxiety, stress and helplessness. It can seem as if the situation cannot be resolved.

Sometimes you and your colleagues may feel that it is time for invasive treatment to be stopped but the family may see things very differently. Feelings can be further heightened when the patient is a child.

When complex disagreements cannot be resolved through careful discussion and agreements cannot be reached, it might be time to consider independent medical mediation.

Mediation is a confidential and voluntary process which gives those involved a chance to talk things through with the support of an independent medical mediator.

Our expert mediators talk to all parties involved independently to understand the issues and feelings involved on all sides and design a mediation process to give everyone the best possible chance of reaching agreement.

"Bringing in an external team allowed us to build a better position of trust and provided a clear moment in time to refresh the relationship between medical team and family" Consultant Paediatrician

Find out more about mediations with the Medical Mediation Foundation on our website and get in touch if you need support.

29/02/2024

We are delighted to partner with Children's Healthcare Australasia and support paediatric healthcare providers in Australia and New Zealand.

Following our work with paediatric teams in Australasia over the last few years we have now opened the MMF Australia office and have a faculty team based in Melbourne. A full programme of events begins next week in Christchurch then on to Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland, NZ.

Conflict in healthcare is often inevitable, but the outcome isn't...

Read more about the CHA partnership and our training in their latest blog. You can register your interest for training and learn about the self-paced Green Zone e-learning course

https://children.wcha.asn.au/our-partnership-with-the-medical-mediation-foundation/

We are a non-profit membership based community representing children’s hospitals and paediatric units across Australia and New Zealand.