Who We Are

Saffron Steer’s work and behaviours are grounded in our values of simplicity, trust and humility.  Our purpose is to ‘make you dateable‘.

Saffron Steer works on an associate-network model. We pull in senior expertise from our wide network in healthcare and build the team that is right for our clients’ needs. Having very senior people in their fields working on projects is another differentiator for Saffron Steer. Their expertise augment the others in the team, and their seniority means they have the authority to make decisions with the client. This in turn means that projects are moved forward at pace.

The team is led by Michael Barker, a Consultant Physiotherapist by background and Imperial College Business School MBA who founded Saffron Steer in 2011.

Michael has a lifelong career in healthcare. He trained as a physiotherapist in South Africa. He then continued to develop his clinical career in the UK at Guys and St Thomas’ hospital where he held the post of Consultant Physiotherapist to the Intensive Care Directorate and developed models of care that are still in practice today. He then went on to complete his MBA at Imperial College Business School and developed a successful management career as a Board level executive with a proven track record of growing healthcare companies. Since its inception, Saffron Steer has assisted many blue-chip healthcare clients across the NHS and private sectors with their positioning, influence and growth including Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, South London and Maudsely NHS Foundation Trust and Nuffield Health. We have also done a significant amount of work in the voluntary sector, sharing our expertise across the strategic, operational and policy elements of end of life care.

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Michael jumped back into a clinical leadership role where he led the Physio Service for NHS Nightingale Hospital in London. He is currently engaged in a national programme with the Department of Health and Social Care leading on the roll out of LAMP (saliva testing) as part of Test and Trace.