![]() Listening to staff during Covid-19: Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust ![]() Meeting the core needs of health and care staff can help transform their work lives and in turn, the safety and quality of the care that they deliver. ![]() Recent studies on doctors ( West and Coia 2019) and nurses and midwives ( West et al 2020), including those in training, have shown that the wellbeing, flourishing and work engagement of health and care staff, is affected by eight key factors that can be organised into three core needs (see figure below). It concluded that burnout is a widespread reality in today’s NHS and has negative consequences for the mental health of individual staff, which has an impact on their colleagues and the patients and service users they care for. The Health and Care Select Committee recently conducted an inquiry on workforce burnout and resilience in the NHS and social care ( House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee 2021). Compassionate leaders constantly strive to understand and meet the core needs of the people they work with ( West 2021). Meeting people’s core needs at work is important in supporting their wellbeing and motivation. Where staff generally report the absence of such leadership there are lower levels of patient satisfaction ( West et al 2022), there is poorer-quality care and (in the acute sector) higher patient mortality ( West and Dawson 2012 West et al 2011) This results in higher-quality care and higher levels of patient satisfaction ( West and Dawson 2012 West et al 2011). Staff who are treated with compassion are better able to direct their support and care giving to others ( Goetz et al 2010). In NHS trusts where staff report the absence of such leadership, staff also report higher levels of work overload and less influence over decision-making ( West et al 2022) and organisations have poorer outcomes ( West and Dawson 2012 West et al 2011). ![]() Compassionate leadership increases staff engagement and satisfaction, resulting in better outcomes for organisations including improved financial performance ( Dawson and West 2018). People who work in supportive teams with clear goals and good team leadership, have dramatically lower levels of stress ( West et al 2015). Research shows that compassionate leadership has wide-ranging benefits for both staff and organisations. Developing compassionate leadership approaches helps leaders hold crucial conversations about inclusion, ensuring they hear and reflect deeply on what staff are telling them and then take necessary action to help address inequities and discrimination in the workplace. It is evident that the NHS has struggled over many years to sustain inclusive, people-centred cultures and our research suggests that it is local action in teams, departments and organisations (big and small), where the work to create these types of cultures is most effective, because that is where the people are ( Ross et al 2020). This creates an inclusive, psychologically safe environment in which diversity in all forms is valued and team members can contribute creatively and enthusiastically to team performance. Compassion blurs the boundaries between self and other, promoting belonging, trust, understanding, mutual support and, by definition, inclusion ( West 2021). Compassionate leaders don’t have all the answers and don’t simply tell people what to do, instead they engage with the people they work with to find shared solutions to problems.įor leadership to be compassionate, it must also be inclusive. How do compassionate leaders behave? They empathise with their colleagues and seek to understand the challenges they face they are committed to supporting others to cope with and respond successfully to work challenges and they are focused on enabling those they lead to be effective and thrive in their work. There is clear evidence that compassionate leadership results in more engaged and motivated staff with high levels of wellbeing, which in turn results in high-quality care ( West 2021). We can experience compassion in different ways: we can feel compassion for other people we can experience compassion from others and there is also the compassion we can direct towards ourselves.Ĭompassionate leadership involves a focus on relationships through careful listening to, understanding, empathising with and supporting other people, enabling those we lead to feel valued, respected and cared for, so they can reach their potential and do their best work. What assumptions have I made before I start?Ĭompassion can be defined as ‘a sensitivity to suffering in self and others with a commitment to try to alleviate and prevent it’ ( Gilbert 2013). What do I hope to learn from reading this? Before you read this explainer, we invite you to ask yourself two questions…
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