Cultivating compassion

The overall aims of the Cultivating Compassion project were to:

• develop a sustainable programme for cultivating compassion that enhances patient safety and experience and promotes ethical healthcare practice;
• engage effectively with healthcare staff building on existing values-based initiatives and encouraging creative compassion promotion projects; and
• facilitate the development of organisations and teams that respect, reflect and promote the values of the NHS Constitution.

Within these broad aims, the project has focused on developing a toolkit of resources for compassion leads (self-identified volunteer trainers and facilitators for compassion-related activities) within three NHS Trusts in southern England. This consists of two key elements: digital stories developed with participating NHS staff, and compassion indicators that have been extracted and developed from the stories. In addition, compassion leads have been trained in using the toolkit, and research activities have been conducted to evaluate how it is being used (and to what extent it is seen as useful) in practice.

The overall project findings showed that the resources and approach taken by the Cultivating Compassion project led to shifts in perspectives among the workforce within the participating trusts.

As part of the Cultivating Compassion toolkit , bespoke digital stories and a menu of compassion indicators were developed. The indicators in particular cover a variety of themes including practising self-compassion; compassionate care towards patients; showing compassion to colleagues; recognising and promoting compassion at an organisational level.

Initial findings have highlighted that compassion leads are developing a variety of different strategies for using the indicators, including short reflection exercises, one-to-one discussions and formal training sessions.