Hello my name is … Chris Pointon

Leadership & Culture in Healthcare – Series 8 Episode Summary: Chris Pointon and the Hello, My Name Is Campaign In this episode, Matthew Winn sits down face to face with Chris Pointon — partnership manager by profession, and co-founder of the landmark “Hello, My Name Is” campaign alongside his late wife, Dr Kate Granger. With 2026 marking ten years since Kate’s death, Chris reflects on how a single hospital conversation became a global movement that transformed the culture of compassionate care. The Origin Story The campaign was born in 2013 from a conversation between Chris and Kate in her hospital side room, where Kate was being treated for a desmoplastic small round cell tumour — a rare and aggressive sarcoma. Despite being given just 12 months to live in 2011, Kate survived until 2016. On one particular day, the couple noticed a simple but striking failure: healthcare staff were not introducing themselves. Kate, a doctor herself and prolific on social media, decided to act. “It was born way back 13 years ago between one conversation between a terminally ill lady who was also a doctor and her non-medical husband.” Chris, coming from a commercial background, was struck by the contrast: “We used to hold meetings with customers, with suppliers, and you would always have that introduction as part of that meeting structure… But obviously got into a medical setting and we could tell that it doesn’t happen in every situation.” A Campaign That Grew Beyond Expectation What Chris and Kate initially thought might gain brief traction quickly grew into something far bigger. “The first couple of weeks, we probably thought that maybe something that would get a little bit of traction and we got a lot of responses, but then it would fizzle out because surely introducing yourself was not something that was required as a reminder… but it just grew arms and legs.” Senior NHS leaders began asking how they could help. Chris leveraged his professional networks to get figures from the business and celebrity world photographed with the campaign logo, spreading the message across social media: “It doesn’t matter if you’re the Prime Minister or if you have those goal blogs walking on the street — we’re all human beings and that human interaction is the first interaction you may have with an individual.” Kate’s Values and What Made the Campaign Last Beyond the campaign logo, Kate developed a set of personal values that became central to its ethos: effective and timely communication; seeing the patient as an individual rather than a bed number; putting the patient at the heart of every decision; and recognising that little things make a difference. “She always said if it made a difference to one other interaction anywhere in healthcare, anywhere in the world, then she was happy because she knew she’d made a difference for that interaction.” Chris describes Kate as someone who, despite her illness, gave everything: “She often said she was only running on 50% gas because of the chemotherapy or because of the side effects or because of the cancer, but 50% of what she was running out was probably double what I was running out or double what a lot of people would have been running out.” The Double Act Matthew presses Chris on his own contribution — the networking, the logistics, the sheer determination. Chris is characteristically modest, framing it through Kate’s example: “Kate’s terminally ill, she’s doing all this speaking at events, she’s really driving her book sales forward, she’s continuing to work… What have I got to moan about? I should be there doing as much as I can.” Carrying the Legacy Forward After Kate’s death, Chris took a year-long unpaid career break and delivered over 200 talks across the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. “It helped me come to terms with what had happened… It meant that I could carry on Kate’s legacy and the campaign in other countries around the world.” Today, the campaign lives on through ambassadors worldwide, branded merchandise that raises funds for charity, a touring play about Kate and Chris’s story, and awards named in Kate’s honour for compassionate care. Observations on Leadership Drawing on years of visiting NHS organisations, Chris shares a clear observation: “Those organisations that really embrace the campaign from the start reap the benefits in their patient surveys and in staff morale.” He notes that the best leaders are those who understand and share the campaign’s backstory rather than treating it as a top-down directive: “I talk at a lot of organisations and when you speak to the staff afterwards, they’ll say, I didn’t know the story — I just thought it was something that we were told we have to do.” On leadership more broadly: “A sign of a great leader is hopefully admit to being wrong and hopefully admit to making mistakes as long as we learn from them.” Looking Ahead — 10th Anniversary The International Hello, My Name Is Day falls on 23 July - the anniversary of Kate’s death and the couple’s wedding anniversary. Chris encourages organisations to hold relaunch events, run selfie campaigns, adopt the logo on staff badges, and reflect on what compassionate care means in practice. “Everyone that works in healthcare makes a difference. You might not think you do, but you certainly do to the people that you’re looking after.” Get involved:Visit the Hello, My Name Is website to contact Chris, order campaign merchandise, or plan events for International Hello, My Name Is Day on 23 July. https://www.officialhellomynameisbadges.co.uk/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21038657475&gbraid=0AAAAAD3cZDbTm2XPEN9cclGiREc_9YoXq&gclid=CjwKCAjw1tLOBhAMEiwAiPkRHmwgcWicdDRN87hls3Y7UNwnDjGBHWbhsvIUlQRGNz8sv9k8GCHN-xoCAaQQAvD_BwE Matthew Winn, podcast host and an experienced leader in healthcare in the UK.