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  • 78. Samira Ben Omar - Training doctors to walk in people’s shoes

    78. Samira Ben Omar - Training doctors to walk in people’s shoes
    2026/06/14
    In this episode of Wild Card – Whose Shoes?, Gill Phillips is joined by Samira Ben Omar, newly appointed Professor of Inclusive Practice at St Mary’s School of Medicine.Samira is helping to shape something genuinely exciting: a brand-new, socially accountable school of medicine, built around communities, inclusion, humility, curiosity and trust. Rather than starting with programmes or project plans, Samira talks about starting with conversations — coffee mornings, community spaces, lived experience and the real messiness of people’s lives.Together, Gill and Samira explore what it means to train future doctors and healthcare leaders who are more than “book smart”; people who can sit with discomfort, listen deeply, understand power, and recognise the huge resource that already exists in communities.There are powerful stories in this conversation: parents navigating SEND systems, GPs learning from mining communities, the importance of faith and community spaces, the role of music therapy, and the challenge of measuring what people actually value.A conversation full of goosebumps, lemon lightbulbs and a very big “watch this space”.For anyone interested in the future of healthcare, co-production, community power, medical education and human-centred care - this one is not to be missedLemon lightbulbs from this episode 🍋💡🍋💡 Communities are not an “extra” - they are the lifeblood of local action. Samira makes the powerful point that community and faith spaces are where so much real support, trust, advocacy and practical action already happens.💡 Future doctors need to be more than “book smart”. Clinical excellence matters, but so do curiosity, humility, listening deeply, understanding communities, and being able to sit with messiness and discomfort.💡 Trust takes time - but trustworthiness can start now.Do what you say you will do, be known as a person, and honour reciprocal relationships.💡 “I am your red book. I am your integrated neighbourhood team.” Fatuma’s story is incredibly powerful: the parent as the holder of the whole memory, navigating everything for her child in a fragmented system.💡 "People do more when they decide for themselves." A beautifully simple line with huge implications for healthcare, co-production, leadership and communities.💡 The system often responds to complexity with more complexity. Samira reminds us that “simple is very difficult to do”. Huge synergy here with Whose Shoes! The answer is not always another framework, strategy or project plan.💡 Relationships require you to move beyond your role. If Samira needs to make coffee at the Roehampton coffee morning because they’re short of volunteers, that matters. It says: I’m here as a human being, not just as a title.💡 Communities can sustain clinicians too. A really interesting twist: communities are not just people to be “helped”. They can be allies, advocates, bridges and sources of nourishment for doctors working in difficult systems.💡 Human-centred care goes beyond person-centred care. Person-centred care can sit within a clinical interaction. Human-centred care asks how we design whole systems around people, families, communities and real lives.💡 Measure what people value - not just what the system asks for. Samira’s commitment to co-designing an outcomes framework feels huge. Not just measuring activity, but working with communities to understand what really matters.💡 Power needs to be noticed, not ignored. This conversation keeps coming back to power: professional power, institutional power, community power, lived experience power - and the need to design spaces where those dynamics are acknowledged.💡 The future doctor who learned from going down the mine, before the consulting room. The story of the GP in Wales being sent down the mines on day one is unforgettable. You cannot treat people well if you have no feel for the lives they are living.SO. Watch this space. This is not just a set of nice ideas. St Mary’s School of Medicine is trying to build something different from the start - with communities, inclusion and social accountability as the golden thread. SUCH an exciting conversation. Thank you and good luck, Samira! We LOVE it when you leave a review!If you enjoy my podcast and find these conversations usefulplease share your thoughts by leaving a review (Spotify or Apple are easiest to leave a review - navigate via 3 dots) and comment on your favourite episodes.Connect with me - Gill Phillips - on LinkedIn, especially if you are interested in our brand new #CYPWhoseShoes resources or our well-established #MatExp (maternity experience) work.I tweet (not so much these days!) as @WhoseShoes and am on Instagram as @WhoseShoesUK and @WildCardWS.Please recommend 'Wild Card - Whose Shoes' to others who enjoy hearing passionate people talk about their experiences of improving health care.
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    50 分
  • 77. Turning 70: Sian Lockwood on Ageing, Purpose and OOPS

    77. Turning 70: Sian Lockwood on Ageing, Purpose and OOPS
    2026/05/17

    On the day before my 70th birthday (how did that happen?!), I wanted to mark the occasion by talking to someone who is making us all think differently about ageing.

    My guest is Sian Lockwood - co-founder of WIGO (When I Get Old) and writer of the brilliant OOPS blog: Outspoken Older People Subverting.

    We talk about what it really feels like to get older - from feeling 35 in your head (most of the time!) to navigating the realities of changing energy, friendships, family life and purpose.

    There’s honesty, humour, a bit of ranting about ageism … and a strong sense that life is still very much for living.

    A warm, wise and gently subversive conversation about growing older - and making it count.


    🍋💡🍋 Lemon Lightbulbs from this episode

    💡 You don’t stop needing purpose just because you get older.

    💡 Ageing isn’t one thing — some days you’re 35, some days you’re 120.

    💡 Being older can make you invisible — unless you choose not to be.

    💡 Purpose doesn’t retire when you do.

    💡 Don’t waste a minute of the time that’s left.

    💡 Slowing down can help you notice more, not less.

    💡 It’s not about pretending to be young — it’s about living fully as you are.

    💡 Older people still want to contribute, not just be cared for.

    💡 Sometimes the best thing for your wellbeing is to get up and do something for someone else.

    LINKS

    OOPS blog - Outspoken Older People Subverting

    WIGO - When I Get Old campaign

    Brian Dolan - End PJ paralysis

    Episode 64. Dorothy Hall - age discrimination in the NHS

    Episode 67. VE Day Special - Dulcie Matthews and Dorothy Hall - Hope, Resilience, and the Spirit of Coventry








    We LOVE it when you leave a review!
    If you enjoy my podcast and find these conversations useful
    please share your thoughts by leaving a review (Spotify or Apple are easiest to leave a review - navigate via 3 dots) and comment on your favourite episodes.

    Connect with me - Gill Phillips - on LinkedIn, especially if you are interested in our brand new #CYPWhoseShoes resources or our well-established #MatExp (maternity experience) work.

    I tweet (not so much these days!) as @WhoseShoes and am on Instagram as @WhoseShoesUK and @WildCardWS.

    Please recommend 'Wild Card - Whose Shoes' to others who enjoy hearing passionate people talk about their experiences of improving health care.

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    39 分
  • 76. Lindsey Douglas - From crisis to change: SEND, lived experience and the power of coproduction

    76. Lindsey Douglas - From crisis to change: SEND, lived experience and the power of coproduction
    2026/04/12

    In this powerful and deeply human conversation, Gill Phillips is joined by Lindsey Douglas – parent carer, advocate and DMI trainer at Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.

    Lindsey speaks with honesty and warmth about family life with her son Grayson, who is autistic, has a severe learning disability and complex needs, and about the journey from crisis and exhaustion to greater understanding, support and hope. She shares what it means to look beyond behaviour, to ask what sits underneath it, and to recognise behaviour as communication.

    The episode explores the value of curiosity, the importance of understanding unmet need, and the difference genuine lived experience can make when it is welcomed into the workforce in meaningful ways rather than as a tick-box exercise.

    Gill and Lindsey also reflect on the award-winning #CYPWhoseShoes work with Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, the development of new Whose Shoes? resources around supporting children and young people, and specifically those with SEND and neurodivergence, and how Staffordshire partners used these conversations to help shape their SEND strategy.

    This is a rich conversation about co-production, trust, family life, young carers, practical support, and the power of bringing parent carers and professionals together in ways that build understanding rather than blame.

    🍋💡🍋 Lemon Lightbulbs from this episode

    💡 A child who seems like a “dream baby” may actually be missing early interaction and communication cues.

    💡 Behaviour is not “bad behaviour” to be controlled. It is often communication of distress, pain or unmet need.

    💡 Curiosity changes everything. Instead of asking “How do we stop this?”, ask “What is this telling us?”

    💡 Diagnostic overshadowing is dangerous. Not everything is about neurodivergence; sometimes a child is simply in pain.

    💡 Parent carers are often managing extreme risk at home without the training professionals receive.

    💡 Lived experience can break down barriers fast, because trust grows when people feel truly understood.

    💡 Co-production is not asking people to comment on a finished plan. It means shaping it together from the start.

    💡 Whose Shoes? works because the cards create safer, less confrontational conversations about difficult issues.

    💡 Supporting one child well means supporting the whole family, including siblings and young carers.

    💡 Sometimes the bravest family decision is to choose peace over social expectations.

    We LOVE it when you leave a review!
    If you enjoy my podcast and find these conversations useful
    please share your thoughts by leaving a review (Spotify or Apple are easiest to leave a review - navigate via 3 dots) and comment on your favourite episodes.

    Connect with me - Gill Phillips - on LinkedIn, especially if you are interested in our brand new #CYPWhoseShoes resources or our well-established #MatExp (maternity experience) work.

    I tweet (not so much these days!) as @WhoseShoes and am on Instagram as @WhoseShoesUK and @WildCardWS.

    Please recommend 'Wild Card - Whose Shoes' to others who enjoy hearing passionate people talk about their experiences of improving health care.

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    1 時間 2 分
  • 75. The many voices of the Myton Hospices - A Podcasthon special

    75. The many voices of the Myton Hospices - A Podcasthon special
    2026/03/15

    What does hospice care really look like?

    What if hospice care isn't about the end of life - but about helping people live well for as long as possible?

    In this special Podcasthon episode of Wild Card – Whose Shoes?, Gill Phillips visits The Myton Hospices in Warwick and brings together the voices of staff, volunteers, families and community supporters who make the hospice what it is.

    Podcasthon is a global initiative bringing together thousands of podcasts around the world for one week each year, all dedicating an episode to a charity they care about. The aim is simple: to use the power of podcasting to raise awareness, spark conversations and support organisations doing vital work in their communities.

    Totally aligned to 'Whose Shoes?' values.

    For Gill, choosing Myton was easy.

    Gill's own mum died there in 2017, and the experience further shaped her understanding of what compassionate care really means.

    In this episode you’ll hear from Olivia, a registered nurse and Community Engagement Manager, Julie, Senior Staff Nurse, Kay, a Telephone Support Volunteer and volunteer Receptionist, Anil, Head of Retail, Holly, Director of Marketing and Communications - and members of the wider community who support Myton in different ways.

    Along the way, we discover how hospice care often begins much earlier than people expect. We hear about small moments that make a huge difference for families, from late-night conversations to Prosecco parties, beach days and even a virtual trip to the Grand Canyon.

    This episode is about the whole community - we can all play a part.

    Because The Myton Hospices isn’t just a place. It’s a network of human kindness.

    And perhaps most importantly, it reminds us that hospice care is not only about dying well – but about living well for as long as possible.


    🍋💡🍋Lemon Lightbulbs


    💡 Hospice care often starts much earlier than people expect – early support can transform people’s experience

    💡 Supporting carers helps patients too – helping someone become a daughter or husband again, not just a carer

    💡 A hospice isn’t defined by medical tasks – it’s the human moments people remember forever

    💡 Creativity makes a difference: motorbikes, beach days and even virtual visits to the Grand Canyon.

    💡 Volunteers are often the first friendly voice people hear – and sometimes the one they recognise instantly.

    💡 Community support comes in many forms: shops, events, legacies, and organisations finding their own ways to help.

    💡 Hospice care is truly holistic – caring for the whole person and the people around them.

    💡 Many families say: “We wish we’d known about hospice support sooner.”

    💡 When care is compassionate and personal, it can shape not only a good death – but a good bereavement.

    LINKS

    Welcome to The Myton Hospices

    If you enjoy this episode, please share it as part of Podcasthon, helping more people discover the crucial work of hospices.

    We LOVE it when you leave a review!
    If you enjoy my podcast and find these conversations useful
    please share your thoughts by leaving a review (Spotify or Apple are easiest to leave a review - navigate via 3 dots) and comment on your favourite episodes.

    Connect with me - Gill Phillips - on LinkedIn, especially if you are interested in our brand new #CYPWhoseShoes resources or our well-established #MatExp (maternity experience) work.

    I tweet (not so much these days!) as @WhoseShoes and am on Instagram as @WhoseShoesUK and @WildCardWS.

    Please recommend 'Wild Card - Whose Shoes' to others who enjoy hearing passionate people talk about their experiences of improving health care.

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    30 分
  • 74. Mike Nicholson: Progressive Masculinity (and why boys do want to talk)

    74. Mike Nicholson: Progressive Masculinity (and why boys do want to talk)
    2026/02/22

    Wild Card - Whose Shoes? Podcast | Mike Nicholson: Progressive Masculinity (and why boys do want to talk)

    What if the real issue isn’t that boys don’t talk - but that we rarely create spaces where they feel safe enough to?

    In this episode, I’m joined by Mike Nicholson, former English teacher and founder of Progressive Masculinity. I first heard Mike speak at an education conference in Wolverhampton organised by Sarah Milne, and his session stayed with me long afterwards - especially the powerful “mask” exercise exploring how young men feel they must appear versus how they really feel.

    Drawing on nearly two decades in the classroom, Mike shares what he saw: thoughtful, capable boys quietly limiting themselves to fit narrow expectations of masculinity - and what changed when they were simply given permission to talk.

    We explore:

    • Why the idea that boys don’t talk is a myth
    • The impact of safe, non-judgemental spaces
    • Early intervention and “upstream” prevention
    • Online rabbit holes and algorithm-driven risks
    • Helping boys decide what kind of men they want to become
    • A values-led approach to confidence, identity and belonging

    There are strong echoes here of my #CYPWhoseShoes work - listening deeply, understanding different perspectives, and recognising that real change is often felt before it can ever be measured.

    🎧 If you have boys or young men in your life - as parents, teachers, grandparents or colleagues - this conversation is well worth a listen.

    🍋💡🍋 Lemon Lightbulbs from this episode

    • Boys don’t avoid talking - they avoid judgement.
    • The gap between the “outside mask” and inside feelings is often huge.
    • Prevention starts with belonging, not behaviour management.
    • Algorithms can take curiosity to harmful places faster than adults realise.
    • Listening with young people changes everything.
    • Some of the most important outcomes can’t be captured on a spreadsheet.
    • If we remove unhealthy spaces, we must create healthier ones.
    • Values help young people navigate peer pressure.
    • Supporting boys and empowering girls are not opposing goals.
    • There isn’t one way to be a man - only the freedom to become yourself.

    Links

    Progressive Masculinity

    Whose Shoes?

    Our #CYPWhoseShoes project

    Men and boys' champions


    #WhoseShoes #WildCardWhoseShoes #CYPWhoseShoes #Belonging #Education #MentalHealth #EarlyIntervention

    We LOVE it when you leave a review!
    If you enjoy my podcast and find these conversations useful
    please share your thoughts by leaving a review (Spotify or Apple are easiest to leave a review - navigate via 3 dots) and comment on your favourite episodes.

    Connect with me - Gill Phillips - on LinkedIn, especially if you are interested in our brand new #CYPWhoseShoes resources or our well-established #MatExp (maternity experience) work.

    I tweet (not so much these days!) as @WhoseShoes and am on Instagram as @WhoseShoesUK and @WildCardWS.

    Please recommend 'Wild Card - Whose Shoes' to others who enjoy hearing passionate people talk about their experiences of improving health care.

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    42 分
  • 73. Create the conditions - then let the magic happen. In conversation with Ruth Germaine

    73. Create the conditions - then let the magic happen. In conversation with Ruth Germaine
    2026/01/25

    🎙️ This episode was recorded jointly with the So, Who Cares Anyway? podcast, hosted by Ruth Germaine.

    In this warm, wide-ranging episode, I’m chatting to fellow podcaster and Darzi alumna Ruth Germaine to explore what it really takes to tackle healthcare’s “wicked problems” through coproduction.

    A powerful invitation to think differently.

    Drawing on our shared roots in the Darzi Fellowship network, we reflect on why lived experience, curiosity and relationship-building matter far more than tick-boxes and tidy solutions.

    I share my journey from social care and local government, through cancer, to creating Whose Shoes?® - a deceptively simple, colourful board-game approach that opens up honest conversations between people, professionals and those in positions of power. Along the way, we explore the power of poetry, the beach-ball metaphor, and why Whose Shoes scenarios are so open-ended – the discussion will be the one YOU need to have.

    Our conversation ranges from maternity services in Buckinghamshire to SEND roadshows and a neonatal unit in Liverpool, illustrating how ‘planting seeds’ can lead to outcomes no one could predict at the start.

    We also reflect on the challenge of evidencing impact, the limits of KPIs, and a Whose Shoes hallmark: the pledge - small or bold actions, taken from the heart. #NoHierarchyJustPeople

    This is an episode about creativity, courage, and the quiet magic that happens when people feel truly heard.

    🍋💡 🍋 Lemon Lightbulbs

    1. Co-production isn’t a method - it’s a mindset
      If people don’t genuinely feel valued and listened to, no tool will save you.
    2. The answers are in the room
      Real change starts with free-flowing conversations, not a prescriptive agenda
    3. You can promise something will happen - just not what
      That uncertainty isn’t a flaw; it’s the essence of true co-production
    4. People see through tick-box listening instantly
      You can’t fake curiosity or shortcut trust
    5. Creativity creates capacity - even when time is tight
      Fun, colour and poetry don’t distract from serious work; they unlock it
    6. Ripples to ... IMPACT!
      A conversation can lead — unexpectedly — to things as big as a new neonatal unit
    7. Just because it's countable, doesn't mean it's what matters most
      What matters most (trust, insight, confidence, connection) rarely fits a KPI
    8. The best change work draws people in
      When it’s real, people text friends: “Get down here — this is different.”
    9. Pledges work because they’re personal
      Small actions “from the heart” beat grand strategies
    10. Learning happens with people, not to them
      Networks for learning together generally beat programmes and courses

    LINKS

    So, Who Cares Anyway? Podcast by Ruth Germaine

    It takes a Village - Buckinghamshire maternity Whose Shoes? event

    Whose Shoes? comes to Nottingham

    We LOVE it when you leave a review!
    If you enjoy my podcast and find these conversations useful
    please share your thoughts by leaving a review (Spotify or Apple are easiest to leave a review - navigate via 3 dots) and comment on your favourite episodes.

    Connect with me - Gill Phillips - on LinkedIn, especially if you are interested in our brand new #CYPWhoseShoes resources or our well-established #MatExp (maternity experience) work.

    I tweet (not so much these days!) as @WhoseShoes and am on Instagram as @WhoseShoesUK and @WildCardWS.

    Please recommend 'Wild Card - Whose Shoes' to others who enjoy hearing passionate people talk about their experiences of improving health care.

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    58 分
  • 72. Maff Potts - Camerados and Public Living Rooms - A Christmas Cracker!

    72. Maff Potts - Camerados and Public Living Rooms - A Christmas Cracker!
    2025/12/21

    🎄🎧 A bit of a Christmas cracker (with maverick music included)

    A conversation full of humanity.

    In this Wild Card – Whose Shoes episode, Gill Phillips chats with Maff Potts, founder of the Camarados movement and creator of Public Living Rooms - simple, welcoming spaces where people can put their feet up, enjoy no-agenda company, and look out for each other.

    No labels. No tick boxes. No “fixing”. Just people.

    Maff brings stories (and piano!) from his journey: from working in homelessness, to advising government, and very intentionally returning to grassroots connection, where real change happens. Together we explore why kindness, laughter, and belonging aren’t “nice extras” - they’re essential.

    🍋💡🍋 Lemon lightbulbs

    🍋 “Where would you put the KPI for this?” The case for humanity, music and improvisation over metrics.

    🍋 Public Living Rooms = connection + purpose (without needing a “service” or a diagnosis).

    🍋 Permission to be a bit rubbish - and why failure/iteration can be a superpower (England vs Silicon Valley!).

    🍋 A powerful example of language changing everything: when “Put your feet up” became “It’s time to talk #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek”… footfall dropped from 1000 people to 40.

    🍋 The “how” matters: how we welcome, speak, listen, and create environments that help people feel human.

    If you’ve ever felt weary of spreadsheets, assessments, and VIP top tables … this episode is for you. #NoHierarchyJustPeople

    🫖 Want to start a Public Living Room? Find out more at camarados.org (and you might just receive a beautiful permission-giving box to get you going). #JFDI

    Happy Christmas everyone!

    Links:

    Home - Camerados

    “It takes a village”

    We LOVE it when you leave a review!
    If you enjoy my podcast and find these conversations useful
    please share your thoughts by leaving a review (Spotify or Apple are easiest to leave a review - navigate via 3 dots) and comment on your favourite episodes.

    Connect with me - Gill Phillips - on LinkedIn, especially if you are interested in our brand new #CYPWhoseShoes resources or our well-established #MatExp (maternity experience) work.

    I tweet (not so much these days!) as @WhoseShoes and am on Instagram as @WhoseShoesUK and @WildCardWS.

    Please recommend 'Wild Card - Whose Shoes' to others who enjoy hearing passionate people talk about their experiences of improving health care.

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    55 分
  • 71. Amelia Wilkinson - living (and parenting) with Type 1 diabetes

    71. Amelia Wilkinson - living (and parenting) with Type 1 diabetes
    2025/11/14

    Amelia Wilkinson: Living (and parenting) with Type 1 diabetes - beyond the data

    Published on 14 November (World Diabetes Day), this conversation lifts the lid on what most of us miss about Type 1 diabetes - the mental load, the masking, and the trauma that doesn’t show up on a glucose graph.

    Podcast host Gill Phillips talks with Amelia Wilkinson, diagnosed at 10 and now a mum, about growing up through school exclusions and assumptions.

    Topics include why behaviour is communication, navigating a high-risk pregnancy, and the power - and limits - of technology.

    Amelia calls for two big shifts: train the adults around children with Type 1 (teachers, carers, clinicians) to spot the emotional toll

    AND separate Type 1 and Type 2 awareness, so misconceptions stop harming care.

    🍋💡🍋 Lemon lightbulbs

    🍋 Type 1 ≠ Type 2: why the confusion hurts

    🍋 Grief for a ‘former self’ and the hidden mental health toll

    🍋 School stories: control, freedom-seeking, and being labelled ‘naughty’

    🍋 Pregnancy with Type 1: what it really took for Amelia to have her daughter

    🍋 Masking, peer support, and life beyond the data

    🍋 Don’t make assumptions – ask how the person is doing, including mental health

    🍋 Train the grown-ups!

    🍋 Separate the awareness days!

    If you work with children and families- or love someone with Type 1 - this one’s for you.


    Links

    Type 1 Diabetes: The Comic Book Stories (courtesy of FAB Fab NHS Stuff)

    World Diabetes Day

    Overview of Whose Shoes

    Wild Card - Whose Shoes podcast with Aurora Thompson


    💛 #WorldDiabetesDay #Type1Diabetes #NoHierarchyJustPeople #WhoseShoes #WildCard

    We LOVE it when you leave a review!
    If you enjoy my podcast and find these conversations useful
    please share your thoughts by leaving a review (Spotify or Apple are easiest to leave a review - navigate via 3 dots) and comment on your favourite episodes.

    Connect with me - Gill Phillips - on LinkedIn, especially if you are interested in our brand new #CYPWhoseShoes resources or our well-established #MatExp (maternity experience) work.

    I tweet (not so much these days!) as @WhoseShoes and am on Instagram as @WhoseShoesUK and @WildCardWS.

    Please recommend 'Wild Card - Whose Shoes' to others who enjoy hearing passionate people talk about their experiences of improving health care.

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    50 分