About the Network
Human Factors 2025
The Programme
Lt Col (Retd.) Langley Sharp MBE
Lt Col (Retd.) Langley Sharp MBE
Langley Sharp MBE is the former head of the Centre for Army Leadership, responsible for championing leadership excellence across the British Army. Having himself graduated from Sandhurst two decades ago, his career in the Parachute Regiment, which included operational command at every rank, saw him deployed to Northern Ireland, North Macedonia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Among his many varied roles, he led a counter-insurgency Task Force operation, commanded a Parachute Regiment Battalion and delivered the Ministry of Defence’s training programme for the London 2012 Olympics venue security, for which he was awarded an MBE. He is the author of the British Army’s official account of leadership, The Habit of Excellence, distilling over three centuries of the Army’s experience in the art, science and practice of leadership.
The breadth of Langley’s life experiences has fostered in him a steadfast belief in the potential of people. As an executive coach and leadership consultant, working with executives and senior leadership teams across the private and public sectors, his passion is to help unleash this potential. Langley is the Founder and Director of Frontier Leadership.
Professor Kevin Fong OBE
Prof. Kevin Fong OBE
Kevin Fong is consultant anaesthetist at UCLH and professor of public engagement and innovation in the Department of Science, Technology, Education and Public Policy (STEaPP) at University College London. Dually accredited in anaesthesia and critical care medicine, he also works as a helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS) doctor with Air Ambulance Kent Surrey Sussex. In March 2020, Kevin was seconded to NHS England as National Clinical Advisor in Emergency Preparedness Resilience and Response for the COVID-19 incident.
He is an honorary senior lecturer in physiology at University College London, where he organises and runs an undergraduate course in Extreme Environment Physiology. He studied astrophysics and medicine at University College London and a masters in astronautics and space engineering at Cranfield University. He is a member of Royal College of Physicians, a Fellow of the Royal College of anaesthetists and has completed postgraduate clinical training in Anaesthesia and Critical Care Medicine. Kevin has a long standing interest in human space exploration and space medicine and has worked with NASA’s Human Adaptation and Countermeasures Office at Johnson Space Centre in Houston.
Professor Peter Brennan OBE
Prof. Peter Brennan OBE
Professor Peter Brennan is a Consultant Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon in Portsmouth, specialising in head and neck oncology with a personal chair for his research and education achievements, He has over 830 publications, with 80+ on patient safety and human factors. He is a committed trainer and educator. Peter won the Association of Surgeons in Training (ASiT) 2022 Silver Scalpel Award – the most prestigious accolade across all UK surgical specialties for training excellence.
He has edited 10 specialty surgery textbooks and is Lead Editor of Gray’s Surgical Anatomy which receives worldwide acclaim. The book begins with a chapter on minimising error in the operating theatre.
Peter is interested in human factors (HF) and patient safety, and has established unique collaborations with HF experts, airline pilots, National Air Traffic Services (NATS) and the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team (Red Arrows). His work improves practice across surgical and medical specialties and includes reducing authority gradients, enhancing team working and raising awareness of many personal factors to reduce medical error. In 2019, he was awarded a PhD entitled ‘Applying HF to Improve Patient Safety.’ He works with the Royal Colleges, GMC, specialty associations and others to help improve patient safety and better teamworking. He promotes equality, diversity and training at every opportunity.
Professor Helen Higham
Prof. Helen Higham
Helen is an Associate Professor in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Oxford, a Consultant Anaesthetist at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Associate Dean for Simulation and Patient Safety at NHSE-Thames Valley.
She is the Director of OxSTaR, the University of Oxford’s simulation and patient safety research centre, (www.oxstar.ox.ac.uk ). Helen has led and supported many safety incident investigations in the NHS and has delivered national training programmes in systems-based incident investigation. She was a founding executive member and a past president of the Association for Simulated Practice in Healthcare in the UK and provides expert input for national committees in patient safety and human factors training, the Foundation Curriculum and the Safe Anaesthesia Liaison Group. She currently leads the Human Factors module on the Masters in Surgical Science and Practice in the University of Oxford.
Her research interests include human factors and simulation-based education in healthcare with current projects focused on system based approaches to safety in primary care, human factors in low to middle income healthcare settings and the use of virtual reality to train healthcare professionals.
Outside work she is a keen baker and a “fair weather” diver.
Professor Eva Doherty
Prof. Eva Doherty
Eva is a practising Chartered Clinical Psychologist, Associate Professor and Director of the Human Factors in Patient Safety (HFPS) training, research and assessment programmes at the National Surgical Training Centre, Department of Surgical Affairs, RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Dublin, Ireland. The HFPS training is a mandatory component of the postgraduate professional training for surgical, emergency medicine, radiology and ophthalmology trainees. Each year over 100 interactive workshops and high fidelity simulation training courses are delivered to trainee doctors, doctors not currently in training and consultants on topics which include medical error, risk management, communication, teamwork, conflict resolution, decision-making, open disclosure, emotional intelligence, crisis management, stress and well-being, professionalism and leadership. Eva pioneered and directs the academic Postgraduate Diploma/MSc in Human Factors in Patient Safety which is an inter-professional one/two year part-time online programme. Eva has over 50 peer reviewed publications on topics relevant to clinical communication issues, curriculum development and personality factors in medical education and assessment. Eva acts as advisor to the National Healthcare Communication Programme in Ireland, HSE. She is a member of the ISQUA Expert Panel and the Independent National Patient Safety Council in the Department of Health. In recognition of Eva’s contribution to medical education and to communication training in healthcare, Eva was awarded a Principal Fellowship by the Higher Education Academy in the U.K. and an honorary fellowship by EACH International, the International Association for Communication in Healthcare.
Professor Kevin Turner
Prof. Kevin Turner
Kevin Turner was appointed as a Consultant Urological Surgeon in Bournemouth in 2007 and is a Visiting Professor at Bournemouth University. He trained in Urology in Oxford, Edinburgh and Melbourne. His clinical interests are in urological cancer, particularly resectional surgery for pelvic cancer and robotic / minimally invasive surgery. He was elected an Hunterian Professor of the Royal College of Surgeons of England whilst still a trainee, was awarded the European Association of Urology Thesis Award for his research in renal cancer, and is co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Urological Surgery. In 2015 he co-founded the Bournemouth Adverse Events Research Team with colleagues in the Department of Psychology at Bournemouth University. The aim of the team is to generate original research data concerning the impact of adverse events on surgeons and to develop and trial novel interventions designed to ameliorate that impact. Results of the team’s national survey have been published in the BJS and BJS Open, an RCT of the effectiveness of a resilience training intervention for surgical trainees has been completed and is in press in BMC Surgery , and in 2020 (in conjunction with RCS England) the team led the multidisciplinary panel that wrote the RCS Good Practice Guide “Supporting surgeons after adverse events”. In 2024 Kevin was appointed as national clinical lead for the RCS England SUPPORT programme which is a multi-site improvement collaborative designed to enable participating Trusts to design, deliver, sustain, and evaluate peer-peer support for surgeons.
Dr Barbara Wren
Dr. Barbara Wren
Barbara Wren is an experienced Consultant Psychologist and organisational consultant, and a skilled facilitator, coach, trainer, mediator, presenter and writer. She is a Chartered Psychologist, Director of Barbara Wren Psychology, and an Honorary Fellow of the Occupational Medicine Division of the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland.
Barbara Wren Psychology provides bespoke therapy, coaching, training, mediation, group reflection and organisational culture interventions to a range of organisations in the UK and Ireland.
Barbara has wide ranging experience of working with doctors, having also spent 25 years at the Royal Free Hospital in London developing interventions for doctors and for medical teams in difficulty.
For the past seven years she has designed and delivered bespoke sessions to the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland Human Factors Programme within which the human impact of high stakes medical work is explored and the emotional consequences of system error, adverse medical outcomes, dysfunctional teamwork experiences and working in systems under high strain are shared, and the courage needed to sustain oneself throughout a medical career explored.
She has a keen interest in using narrative to develop individual, role and system resilience as demonstrated in her book “True Tales of Organisational Life” (Karnac 2016). It describes how she developed a unique staff psychology role at the Royal Free and then used this experience to bring psychology expertise and conceptual thinking to the development of the European Schwartz Round model, and to support the UK and Irish rollout of Schwartz Rounds. The book ends with a consideration of the containment that needs to be available to enable healthcare staff to manage the impact of their work, while staying effective in role.
Since then, she has further developed this work to create a unique bespoke psychological intervention model to sustain wellbeing and effectiveness in a range of professional groups including doctors, lawyers and social care professionals,
For further information go to barbarawrenpsychology.com
Dr Dale Whelehan
Dr. Dale Whelehan
Dr. Dale Whelehan is a behavioural scientist and former CEO of 4 Day Week Global, a pioneering organisation driving the global movement towards reduced-hour, productivity-focused work. With a background in physiotherapy and a PhD in behavioural science, Dale’s work explores how cognitive load, fatigue, and decision-making impact performance in high-stakes environments like healthcare.
He brings a systems-thinking lens to the redesign of work and training in surgery, advocating for flexible, psychologically safe, and human-centred approaches. His research challenges traditional models of healthcare delivery, offering evidence-based insights into how we can improve both clinician wellbeing and patient outcomes through better design of the environments in which we work.
The Event
📅 Date: 6th October 2025
📍 Venue: Medical Sciences Teaching Centre, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PL
🎟 Ticket Price: £70 (limited free tickets available for students)
The event is accredited by the Royal College of Anaesthetists, ASGBI and RCSI for 6 CPD credits
Presentation Prizes
Thank you to all those who presented their projects at Human Factors in Surgery 2025. A special congratulations to our prize winners:
Oral and ePoster presentation available.
Event Sponsors
The MDU, and our specialist dental division, the DDU, is a not-for-profit organisation wholly dedicated to our members’ interests. Our team is led and staffed by doctors and dentists with real-life experience of the pressures and challenges faced in practice. We offer our members expert guidance, personal support and robust defence in addressing medico and dento-legal issues, complaints and claims. Our customised services range from legal assistance to indemnity to appropriate CPD. We have an unparalleled track-record of helping members overcome the challenges which threaten their livelihood. Our members practise with confidence because they know we are on their side and by their side.
About
Dedicated to advancing the understanding and application of human factors in surgery, anaesthesia and peri-operative medicine.
