The Steering a True Course 2026

The Steering a True Course 2026 is organized by Anne Davies Audiology Courses and will be held from Jan 27 - 29, 2026 at The Park Royal, Stretton, Warrington, England, United Kingdom.

Description:
This course is a unique opportunity for those moving into leadership and management roles, or who are already in those roles, to have support on that journey from experienced senior leaders in NHS audiology. There is no other similar course in our profession, or in physiological sciences, where senior clinicians come together to share their knowledge of leading audiology teams. The feedback from attendees on the course has consistently been outstanding.

Anne Davies was awarded the Denzil Brooks Trophy in 2010 from the British Society of Audiology for setting up this course. The course provides practical skills on all aspects of running audiology services. The programme explores leadership qualities, communication skills, leading a team, business planning, change management, service development, clinical governance, stress management, and current issues in Audiology. The course faculty also discuss leadership in a post-covid world, and the approaches necessary to lead in this new more remote / virtual world.

The course gives time out to reflect on your skills and self-management, and there is opportunity to discuss with the speaker faculty in a relaxed setting. This is an exceptional opportunity to gain resources, tools and insights from key clinical leaders in audiology, who are motivated to pass on what has worked for them.

Course Content:
Into the Labyrinth of NHS Health and Social Care (Dr Jagjit Sethi)
The health care is an ever changing complex and often confusing system to navigate. In this session we familiarise ourselves with the past, present and some future changes to the NHS landscape and discuss their implications and what we can do as Audiology service providers.

Time Management (Anne Davies)
We will précis key literature on time management, and cover suggestions for scheduling tasks, avoiding procrastination, and habit-formation.

Compassionate Leadership in Complex Times –
Building Consensus, Through Reflection and Collaboration (Ruth Thomsen)
This workshop will use the lens of leadership to build a blueprint for how we work in complex systems. Using reflection, conversations and group work we will build a leadership strategy that can support our teams. In the second half of our session, we will start to use this strategy to develop a framework and action plan that prioritises and identifies the timescales and resources.
We will reflect on current NHS leadership thinking, use different models and ways of working, build consensus around a common theme, demonstrate the power of coproduction, transform thinking into strategy and actions plans, and reflect on the methods/models and outcome.

Preventing Burnout (Dr Christine DePlacido)
Stress is unavoidable but we can change our reactions to stress in order to lessen its effects. In this session we will look at how we react to stress, what are our triggers and how we can change how it affects us. We will learn some practical techniques based on relaxation and mindfulness that can reduce stress and promote good health. These techniques are simple to use and can be practiced at work.

Mindfulness (Dr Jagjit Sethi)
It can be easy to rush through our very demanding lives without stopping to notice much. Paying more attention to the present moment; to your own thoughts and feelings, and to the world around you can improve your mental wellbeing.
Some people call this awareness or “mindfulness”. Mindfulness can help us reduce stress and anxiety, enjoy life more and understand ourselves better. You can take steps to develop it in your own life.
In this session we will explore the importance of our well-being and practice the art of mindfulness. Please bring with you a smell that makes you feel happy or brings back good memories.

Strategic Management in Audiology –
Recognising and Influencing the Bigger Picture (John Day)
Where is your service heading? Will it thrive in the future? The ability to understand and manage the wider environment in which we lead is a key to success. This presentation and tasks will explore issues and tools relevant to being an effective strategic leader within Audiology.

Influencing Change: A Scientific Approach to Leadership (Will Brassington)
The ability to understand change is essential for today and tomorrow’s NHS leaders; the influence of people, the barriers, the components, the drivers, the successes and failures, the risks, and the acceptance of change are all discussed in this presentation. Some examples of successful and not so successful changes are also provided. An interactive lecture, attendees are expected to participate in discussions.

Making Service Development Happen (Dr John Fitzgerald)
This presentation will focus on considerations necessary for successful service development, factors that can influence the outcome, stages to go through in achieving successful developments and a few tips to make it easier.

Deconstruct Your Service, Build a Case (Dr Rachel McCarthy)
What key information will help you understand and develop your service? How do you work out staff and resource needs to assess if capacity meets demand, or to help build a case for more? How do you argue a case for quality initiatives? Here, we take a practical look at key information that can help identify and underpin your service development project, persuade those who need to be persuaded, and get it over the line.

Maintaining Healthy Work Relationships – What Would Freud Do? (Dr Christine DePlacido)
My talk will cover the psychological aspects of relationships, including ego defences, transference, self concept and working with resistance. The aim is to identify where these issues impact on managing staff and how to address problematic behaviours.

Clinical Governance (Adam Beckman)
How do you know your service is safe? What level of risk is acceptable? If something’s gone wrong, does it need reporting? And investigating?
Are complaints important? How do you learn from them?
The right approach to governance supports continual service improvement. The wrong approach is a boring paper exercise. This session will hopefully help steer you towards the former.

Leadership – The Uncut Guide! (Will Brassington)
During this programme you have learnt different approaches to leadership and service development from the expert faculty. This final presentation titled the UNCUT guide aims to help consolidate formal and scientific approaches to leadership using approaches and techniques learned through the experience of the author. A lively session that will make you consider your approach to work in a different way.