Creating learning environments for compassionate care: a programme to promote compassionate care by health and social care teams.

Abstract

The consistent delivery of compassionate health and social care to older people is a matter of global concern to the nursing profession and the public it serves. The development and evaluation of effective interventions to address this concern is of prime importance. This paper draws on findings from previous research to propose the use of a novel implementation programme designed to improve and support the delivery of compassionate care by health and social care teams. Creating Learning Environments for Compassionate Care (CLECC) is a 4-month implementation programme designed for hospital ward nursing teams caring for older people, but relevant to other teams working with other client groups. The programme focuses on using workplace learning to promote change at unit/ward/team level by enabling the development of leadership and team relational practices which are also designed to enhance the capacity of individual team members to relate to older people. Existing research evidence suggests that optimising relational capacity in this way will support the delivery of compassionate care. This evidence-based intervention is designed to develop and sustain the relational work required by managers and team members to support care delivery and has the potential to address widely documented variations in care quality. Attention should now be paid to establishing the feasibility of the intervention in practice.