Design Thinking for Healthcare - the Warwick launch lecture
About this Event
Anyone who has tried to change something in healthcare has the same memory: a pilot that worked. It improved something real, the evidence was good, the team believed in it - and then it stopped. It didn't fail. It just never spread.
That pattern is not bad luck, and it is not a failure of effort or goodwill. It is structural, it is predictable, and it can be diagnosed.
Join Daniel Steenstra at WMG for the launch of Design Thinking for Healthcare: A Practical Guide to Healthcare Transformation (Routledge / Productivity Press, 5 October 2026), with a foreword by Lord Darzi.
In this diagnostic lecture, Daniel sets out why transformation programmes stall at the same point again and again — and what clinicians, managers and executives already have in their hands to do about it. You will leave with a framework you can apply on Wednesday morning, not a sales pitch.
Who this is for
NHS trust and ICS leaders, clinicians, healthcare managers, medtech and industry partners, researchers, and anyone responsible for making change actually stick in a health system.
The evening
- 17:30 — Drinks reception
- 18:00 — Welcome, and WMG Health Innovation
- 18:15 — Lecture: why healthcare transformation fails, and what you already have to fix it
- 18:50 — Questions from the floor
- 19:10 — Reception resumes, with a book signing
- 20:00 — Close
About the speaker
Daniel Steenstra spent nine years in clinical training in Amsterdam, then eleven as a professional designer - at Carrozzeria Michelotti in Turin, and at Jaguar in Coventry, where he project managed the interior design of the XK8.
In 1997 he moved a few miles across Coventry, from Jaguar's Whitley studios to WMG, to teach design thinking to engineers. He stayed twenty-five years. And it was at WMG, in 2003, that the third strand came back: he founded and led the £5.7M HealthTech programme, helping West Midlands companies move into the health sector - and returning him to the medicine he had trained in two decades earlier. He went on to become the Royal Academy of Engineering's first Visiting Professor in Medical Innovation.
Medicine, design, academia - three strands that rarely meet in one career. WMG is where they converged, and this book is what came of it.
Practical notes
- Free to attend, but registration is required — the room has a fixed capacity.
- Registration closes Sunday 4 October.
- Copies of the book will be available to buy on the night, and Daniel will be signing during the reception.
- Please let us know about access or dietary requirements when you register.
- Campus car parks use automatic number plate recognition — register your vehicle at Reception on arrival for free parking.
The book publishes on 5 October. This launch, the following evening, brings it back to the site where its healthcare work began. Seats are limited — please register in advance.
Agenda
🕑: 05:30 PM - 06:00 PM
Registration and drinks reception
Info: Arrive, collect your badge, and take a drink. The room will already be talking.
🕑: 06:00 PM - 06:15 PM
Welcome, and an introduction to Health Innovation at Warwick
Host: Prof Kerry Kirwan, Dean of WMG.
Info: What WMG's Health Innovation team is building, and why this room has been brought together.
🕑: 06:15 PM - 06:50 PM
Why transformation fails, and what you already have to fix it
Host: Daniel Steenstra, Author, Design Thinking for Healthcare
Info: A diagnostic talk on why transformation programmes stall at the same point again and again. You will leave with a framework you can apply on Wednesday morning, not a sales pitch.
🕑: 06:50 PM - 07:10 PM
Questions from the floor, and close
Host: Hopi Sen, Director of Public Affair and Policy (WMG)
Info: Open discussion with the room.
🕑: 07:15 PM - 08:00 PM
Reception, book signing and networking
Info: The reception resumes. Copies of the book will be available to buy, and Daniel will be signing.
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
USD 0.00
