After the Applause: What Frontline Healthcare Workers Need Now – Global Conversations with Dr Linda McGoldrick

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The Paddy Ashdown Forum is delighted to welcome Dr Linda McGoldrick to our Global Conversations series this May.

Dr McGolderick is an internationally recognised leader in global health policy and strategy, with a distinguished career advising governments, international organisations, health systems and financial institutions on health reform, system resilience and sustainable models of care. She has worked extensively across regions and sectors, bringing together policy, practice and finance to drive better outcomes for patients and communities.

In this Global Conversation, Dr McGoldrick will explore the experience of global frontline health‑care workers during and after a pandemic.  She will look at how pandemics expose the strengths and weaknesses of health systems – and how those on the front line so often absorb the greatest physical, psychological and moral pressures.

A central theme of her talk will be:

‘The mental health and resiliency of frontline healthcare workers globally, in addition to their medical well‑being.’

Dr McGoldrick will examine how frontline workers – including doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, social care staff, community health workers and support staff – face not only increased clinical risk, but also sustained emotional strain, burnout, moral injury and trauma.  She will explore what we now know about the longer‑term mental health impacts of pandemic response, and how these intersect with chronic workforce challenges such as staffing shortages, low pay, harassment, and lack of voice in decision‑making.

Drawing on lessons from COVID‑19 as well as earlier outbreaks and global health emergencies, Dr McGoldrick will consider:

– how mental health and resiliency can be recognised as core components of health‑system preparedness, not an afterthought.

– what practical steps employers, professional bodies, unions, governments and international institutions can take to protect, support and retain frontline staff.

– how better data, leadership and investment can help embed a culture of psychological safety, peer support and dignified working conditions.

– and what it would mean to design health systems that genuinely protect those who protect us.

This conversation will be of interest to health professionals, policy‑makers, parliamentarians, civil society, academics and informed citizens who care about the future of health systems and the people who hold them together in times of crisis.

Please join us for what promises to be an insightful and challenging discussion on how we can move from applause and rhetoric to real, lasting change for frontline workers around the world.

Date:   22^nd May 2026  |  13:00 BST  |  Online

Event:   Global Conversations with Dr Linda McGoldrick

Title:  After the Applause: What Frontline Healthcare Workers Need Now

Book Here