Patient Engagement Programme
Help your team handle difficult moments with confidence
Cabin-crew-led, interactive courses on de-escalation, workplace culture and customer service. We interview your staff, then design every session around your team and the patients they care for.
We will visit your trust pro bono to explore working together.
Bespoke
Designed around your team and Trust
Delivered with NHS teams across the country
- Launched in the Whittington ED in 2021
- Now running across multiple NHS trusts
- Bespoke courses built from staff 'coffee morning' research
- Shortlisted: Cross-Sector Working, University of Bradford 2022
Watch
See the programme in action
A short look at how our cabin-crew-led sessions help NHS teams handle difficult moments with confidence.
How it works
Built around your people, from the very first conversation
A worried patient entering an unfamiliar hospital feels much like a nervous passenger boarding a flight. Our senior cabin crew trainers and healthcare professionals combine theory, wellbeing and practical skills to break down barriers and improve communication.
A fact-finding coffee morning
We visit your trust pro bono and interview your staff to understand the moments and pressures your team really faces.
We design around your team
We build a bespoke course from your findings, choosing the modules that matter most for your service and your delegates.
Cabin-crew-led delivery
Senior cabin crew trainers run interactive sessions of theory, wellbeing and practical de-escalation, in person and in situ.
Reflection and feedback
Every delegate gets time for self-reflection and the chance to feed back, so the learning lands and we keep improving.
What your team gains
Calmer interactions and a stronger culture
Confident de-escalation
Staff learn practical techniques to defuse difficult moments and put anxious patients at ease, drawn from cabin crew experience.
Stronger first impressions
Your team learns to make the first seconds of every patient interaction count, improving the experience from the moment they arrive.
A reenergised, just culture
Delegates report feeling empowered and reenergised, with a safe space to talk openly and build a fairer workplace culture together.
Improving patient safety and experience
The concept of a nervous passenger boarding a flight to the other side of the world, feeling a loss of control, bears a huge resemblance to a worried patient entering an unfamiliar hospital environment.
Our senior cabin crew trainers and healthcare professionals combine theory, wellbeing, and the practical elements of de-escalation and customer service training to break down barriers and improve communication for staff across the NHS.
Courses are bespoke and designed with our delegates and staff at the heart of what we do. The WingFactors brand, its staff and its training material have no affiliation with a specific airline. Our strength comes from our experience and diversity across the industry.
Key modules
- Making first impressions count
- How to de-escalate effectively
- 'Over to you' roleplay with feedback
- Working in a just safety culture
- The journey of an effective apology
- Managing patient expectations
What is included
Each session includes the following:
- Two Patient Engagement presenters
- A bespoke training course designed to meet Trust and delegate requirements
- WingFactors' Clinical Wellbeing Advisor, Dr Heidi Edmundson (subject to availability)
- A human factors trainer and certified airline pilot guest speaker
- Full indemnity costs
- Refreshments for delegates (tea, coffee and pastries)
- An e-certificate upon course completion
Meet the team first
WingFactors would be delighted to visit your Trust pro bono to discuss the potential of working together. Our fact-finding 'coffee morning' sessions are a great way to meet the team and gather as much information as possible, so we can deliver the most impactful, participant-centred programme available.
This programme was recognised as the Best COVID-19 Response in Healthcare at the 2021 COVID Response Awards, and shortlisted for Best Education Programme for the NHS at the 2022 HSJ Awards.
The feedback from doctors and nurses in the department who have been exposed to WingFactors training has been unanimously positive and have really made people consider the way in which we do things. Many of us are actually now wondering why such important aspects of training are not routine in medicine.
Dr Anna Goose
ED Consultant
Who delivers it
Led by our Patient Engagement Lead and Clinical Wellbeing Advisor
Wayne McCormack
Patient Engagement Lead | CRMT
Wayne leads WingFactors patient engagement work and is a Crew Resource Management trainer, applying aviation communication techniques to improve the patient experience.
Dr Heidi Edmundson
Clinical Wellbeing Advisor
Heidi is an emergency medicine consultant and the clinical wellbeing advisor to WingFactors, supporting the wellbeing and psychological safety of the clinical teams we work with.
Each course is shaped by our Patient Engagement Lead and supported by our Clinical Wellbeing Advisor, alongside the wider patient engagement team and an airline pilot guest speaker. Read the full team bios.
Start with a no-obligation coffee morning
We would be delighted to visit your trust pro bono to meet your team and explore working together. Tell us about your service and we will come back to you personally.
Pro bono fact-finding visit. We reply to every enquiry personally, with no obligation.