Leadership & culture in healthcare

Available Episodes

5 of 42

Innovation, hope and leadership with Tony Young
Matthew Winn in conversation with Tony YoungMatthew Winn interviews Tony Young, a clinician and national leader in healthcare innovation, about his career, leadership mindset, and how he manages multiple senior roles across healthcare, academia, and business.Tony explains that he is a consultant urological surgeon at Southend Hospital, Associate Medical Director for Innovation and Transformation, National Clinical Director for Innovation at NHS England, and Chair of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Anglia Ruskin University. He is also a non-executive director of an investment trust to better understand how finance, governance, and investment work outside the NHS.Early in his career, Tony founded four companies as a junior doctor, raising £5 million and exiting each business. This entrepreneurial journey was not smooth—he nearly lost his home—but it gave him invaluable insights into risk, failure, and innovation. These experiences shaped his belief that healthcare must learn from business, and that systems change happens when clinicians engage with entrepreneurship and leadership beyond medicine.Matthew challenges Tony on how he balances so many senior roles. Tony explains that the answer lies not in time management but in self-knowledge. His leadership transformation came through executive coaching, arranged by his former NHS England director, Ian Dodge, and particularly through coaching with Dame Una O’Brien, former Permanent Secretary at the Department of Health. Coaching helped Tony understand his internal “operating system” – how his mind works, how assumptions form, and how emotions and beliefs influence leadership behaviour.Tony also draws on neuroscience and psychology, especially the thinking of Robert Kegan (author of Immunity to Change), to explain that leaders often struggle not because of workload but because of misalignment between their actions and their values. Once he became clear about his core values, he learned how to structure his working life around them.He explains that when your work aligns with your values, you gain a sense of clarity, speed, energy, and resilience. For Tony, these values include equity, justice, creativity, education, family, community, and autonomy. Because all his roles express the same values, they reinforce each other rather than compete for energy.⸻Key Leadership Quotes“Not being normal, being a bit crazy, being on the edge – that’s where change happens.”“I nearly lost my house. I learned a lot about business the hard way.”“Coaching felt like a luxury for my mind.”“I learned how my ‘operating system’ works – and why I think the way I think.”“If you live according to your values, you can work at speed and scale.”“When your work aligns with your values, your mind becomes super-efficient.”“I don’t manage multiple jobs. I live one life in different expressions.”“Healthcare is actually a very safe system compared to how the City works.”⸻Leadership TakeawaysSelf-awareness is more important than time managementHigh performance is not about squeezing more hours into the day; it comes from understanding yourself, your motivations, and your mental patterns.Coaching is not a luxury—it is leadership infrastructureAccess to high-quality coaching enables leaders to reflect, grow, and avoid burnout. It’s not weakness; it’s strategy.Innovation happens at the edgeTony’s career shows that progress in healthcare often comes from people willing to cross boundaries between medicine, business, and academia.Values create energyWhen your work reflects your personal values, you gain momentum rather than exhaustion.Failure is a leadership teacherNear-collapse in business taught Tony as much as success. Leadership maturity grows through challenge.Think cross-sectorUnderstanding how money, governance, and investment work outside healthcare helps leaders build better systems inside healthcare.Align roles around purpose, not statusMultiple jobs only work if they serve one unifying mission. Matthew Winn, podcast host and an experienced leader in healthcare in the UK.
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45:28
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45:28
Insights of aspiring CEOs - part two
Sarah Brampton has been on the CEO development programme for the past year and shares her motivations; insights and hopes for leadership and tackles the question - what kind of CEO do you want to be. Spoiler alert - it’s about leadership! Matthew Winn, podcast host and an experienced leader in healthcare in the UK.
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36:58
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36:58
Insights of aspiring CEOs - part one
The NHS aspiring chief executive programme develops leaders to be ready to take on accountable officer roles, through a structured development programme. Rachel Evans and Sean Fenwick share their insights into their development; motivation and aspirations. A great insight into our developing NHS leaders. Matthew Winn, podcast host and an experienced leader in healthcare in the UK.
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44:57
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44:57
It’s a wrap - on series 5 with Saffron Cordery
The 10 year health plan published by the Government signalled important changes to the NHS provider sector. Safron describes the aspirations as “back to the future” with freedoms and accountability being described together. However the difference is the context with the need for foundation trust model to be fit for a new age. This must allow providers to innovate, but within a modern and update governance model. The model must be judged against outcomes and freedoms to linked to accountabilities.Saffron reflected that many of the ‘group models’ had been born out of the desire to meet local needs differently. However there was a need to have a national set of principles guiding the development and instigation of groups - potentially around: value, staff benefit, improvements in population outcomes and being well governed.All models need great leadership at CEO and chair levels. The group chair needs great experience and therefore is probably not suitable for those without great executive or non executive experience already. The pipeline for future CEOs is bright, but the reality is that some of the sub accountable officer group/site role are as good training and development as a smaller accountable officer role could be. Matthew Winn, podcast host and an experienced leader in healthcare in the UK.
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40:18
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40:18
Risk, devolution and leadership with James Sumner
University hospitals of Liverpool Group (https://www.uhliverpool.nhs.uk/) is led by James Sumner. The hospitals Group came about from a recognition that despite having many specialist hospitals in the city, residents were not getting help at the right time. 5 different hospitals were undertaking their work separately and there was the need to support General Practitioners to access diagnostics more easily. The first priority was for women and maternity services to ensure standards improved.The hospitals in Liverpool have a long history of Trusts and their locally supported brands. The balance in the group is the benefits deriving from scale and size balanced with local delivery. Each site has its own autonomous leadership team and the Group board then links across the organisations. The oversight of the Group is underpinned by an enhanced risk approach and the management teams and Group Board use assurance and risk registers to discuss the important aspects of care. A rigid governance approach ensures continuity and a standardised approach- this is blended with a delegated framework for leadership. There are five simple rules that cannot be altered across the trusts in the Group and these are not altered unless all relevant people in the group are involved and included to change. The risk approach is based on a 5x5x5 framework that involves a clear approach on the effectiveness of the controls over a risk.The approach took time to develop and individuals and teams needed support to adopt this way or working.Internal audit was used extensively to test out the risk approach. Most leadership i site specific but there has begun to be cross organisational leadership, especially where organisations share sites. This shared approach had in genesis in external reviews that were taken on specific organisations and clinical services and NHS England the local Integrated Care Boards both encouraged a different leadership approach to make service change happen. The Group CEO has to stay out of the operational leadership teams and trust them to make their own decisions. The role needs to be focused on strategy, management of the local and national politics and negotiate a future for what the Group does. The role has to support leaders to flourish and know when to get out of their way!The future for the Group will include a shaper for us on research; digitalising how care is organisation and delivered and support o make improvements in the health of the local population. Matthew Winn, podcast host and an experienced leader in healthcare in the UK.
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47:44