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Bristol Patient Safety Conference, now in its 13th year, is an independent, national, online event with over 300 attendees.

Hear from patient safety and QI experts through our programme of talks and workshops. Previous keynote speakers have included: Baroness Helena Kennedy KC, Sir Robert Francis KC, Dame Clare Gerada and in 2025 Professor Trish Greenhalgh and Dr Aidan Fowler.

160 QI and Patient Safety projects from across the UK are shared each year in our competition (deadline 2 March 2026)

2026 programme under development

2025 speakers below

Keynote: Professor Trish Greenhalgh
Trish Greenhalgh is Professor of Primary Care Health Sciences. She studied Medical, Social and Political Sciences at Cambridge and Clinical Medicine at Oxford before training first as a diabetologist and later as an academic general practitioner. She leads a programme of research at the interface between the social sciences and medicine, working across primary and secondary care. Three particular interests are the health needs and illness narratives of minority and disadvantaged groups; the introduction of technology-based innovations in healthcare; and the complex links (philosophical and empirical) between research, policy and practice.

Aidan Fowler
Professor Aidan Fowler is the Interim Chief Inspector of Healthcare at CQC. He is also National Director of Patient Safety and Deputy Medical Director in NHS England, and Deputy Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Health and Social Care. Aidan was previously the Director of NHS Quality Improvement and Patient Safety and Director of the 1000 Lives Improvement Service for NHS Wales. Aidan is also Senior Responsible Officer for the roll-out of the major patient safety initiative Martha’s Rule in NHS hospitals in England. The scheme is named after Martha Mills, who died from sepsis aged 13 in 2021.

Rhys Hadden
Rhys is a barrister at Serjeants Inn Chambers in London. He specialises in all areas of public and human rights law. He is regularly instructed to advise on a diverse range of matters including mental health, community care, health care, education and social housing. Rhys co-authored the chapter: Deciding for Others – Children in the 4th edition of the book Medical Treatment: Decisions and the Law, written by members of Serjeants’ Inn Chambers and has a keen interest in the subject of consent as it relates to children.

Dave Snowden
Dave is a Welsh management consultant and researcher in the field of knowledge management and the application of complexity science. Dave is the founder and chief scientific officer of The Cynefin Company, a management-consulting firm specialising in complexity and sensemaking. He has pioneered a science-based approach to organisations drawing on anthropology, neuroscience, and complex adaptive systems theory.

Nathan Riddell
Nathan is an Anaesthetics trainee working for the NHS in Wales. He has been seconded onto the team taking the OBS Cymru postpartum haemorrage quality improvement project and expanding it across England.

Quality Improvement workshop leaders

Kieran Walsh

Clinical Director at the BMJ

Nicola Davey

Director and founder of the Quality Improvement Clinic (QIC)

Lesley Jordan

Consultant anaesthetist, and Patient Safety Lead, Royal United Hospitals, Bath

Stephanie Meddick-Dyson

QI mentor, Quality Improvement Clinic and Palliative Medicine doctor

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