From Programmes to Practice: Developing Managers at Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Trust

In this episode of Totara Talks Talent, Matt is joined by Stephen Melville from Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust to explore how one of the UK’s largest and most complex healthcare organisations is developing its managers at scale.

Stephen shares how the Learning & Development team at Guy’s & St Thomas’ designed and evolved their People Manager Programme, supporting over 5,000 managers across a workforce of 25,000 staff.

The conversation covers how the programme blends e-learning, facilitated workshops, social reflection, and data-driven insight, how Totara supports delivery at scale.

What you’ll learn in this episode

1. Why Guy’s & St Thomas’ created a dedicated People Manager Programme
2. How the programme is structured across seven core people principles
3. How to design management development that feels useful, not theoretical
4. What it really takes to scale leadership development to thousands of managers
5. How Totara and Power BI support smarter reporting and insight
6. Measuring impact without becoming obsessed with ROI
7. How reflection, social commitment, and storytelling support behaviour change
8. Practical advice for organisations building management programmes from scratch

About the guest

Stephen Melville is a Learning & Development Manager at Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, where he co-develops leadership and management programmes that support performance, culture, and patient care across one of the UK’s most complex healthcare environments.

Related resources & links

1. ▶️ Watch the webinar:
2. Developing Managers at Scale at Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Trust
3. 📘 Book: How People Learn – Nick Shackleton-Jones
4. 📘 Book: Map It / Action Mapping – Cathy Moore
5. 🌍 Totara Community – Connect with other learning professionals