Michael West CBE is a Senior Visiting Fellow at The King’s Fund, London, Professor of Organisational Psychology at Lancaster University, Visiting Professor at University College, Dublin, and Emeritus Professor at Aston University, where he was formerly Executive Dean of Aston Business School. He graduated from the University of Wales in 1973 and was awarded a PhD in 1977 for research on the psychology of meditation. He has authored, edited and co-edited 20 books and has published more than 200 articles in scientific and practitioner publications on teamwork, innovation, leadership, and culture, particularly in healthcare. He is a Fellow of many professional associations including the British Psychological Society, the American Psychological Association, the Academy of Social Sciences, the International Association of Applied Psychologists, and he is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. He led the NHS England Policy Research Programme into cultures of quality and safety. He also led the design and implementation of the NHS National Staff Survey. He assisted in developing the national framework in England, Developing People, Improving Care (2016) and the Collective Leadership Strategy for Health and Social Care (2017) in Northern Ireland. He is supporting Health Education and Improvement Wales’s ten-year strategy for developing compassionate leadership across all of health and social care. Michael co-chaired, with Dame Denise Coia, the two-year inquiry on behalf of the UK General Medical Council into the mental health and well-being of doctors, Caring for Doctors, Caring for Patients (2019). He also led the review for The King’s Fund, commissioned by the Royal College of Nursing Foundation, into the mental health and well-being of nurses and midwives across the UK, The Courage of Compassion: Supporting Nurses and Midwives to Deliver High Quality Care (2020). Michael West was appointed a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2020 for services to compassion and innovation in healthcare.
