compassion in nursing

The NHS have 6 core nursing values, launched by England’s chief nursing officer, Jane Cummings, after the Mid-Staffordshire disaster. These 6C’s were put into place to reinforce holistic nursing (Delves-Yates, C. 2015), ensure that everybody within the National Health Service is doing everything possible to ensure the best possible service for the patients, and to ensure that patients were put at the heart of everything healthcare professionals do (Watterson, L. 2013). The 6 C’s include care, compassion, competence, commitment, courage and communication. All six of the 6C’S are all fundamental values when it comes to healthcare, however out of these six, the three that I have chosen to write about are communication, compassion and courage. I have chosen these three as I believe that they are the most imperative when it comes to delivering high-quality care for the patients or service users.

Nurses actively preserve the dignity of people through practiced kindness and respect for the vulnerability and powerlessness of people in their care… This vulnerability creates a power differential in the relationship between nurses and persons in their care that must be recognised and managed.7 A diagram representing a continuum of professional behaviour provides a picture of therapeutic versus non-therapeutic behaviour in the relationship between the nurse and the persons in their care.8

The role of a nurse is viewed as stressful, so nurses need to be emotionally ready and be physically fit to participate in delivering care. Acts of kindness, trustworthiness, promoting privacy, ensuring dignity, being engrossed into the artistry of caring and engaging in anti-discriminatory practice (Baughan & Smith 2008) by respecting everyone, irrespective of age, culture, gender, socio-economic class, sexual orientation, religious beliefs and the condition from which they are afflicted, are caring indicators of a nurse.

Compassion is one of the fundamental characteristics implemented into patient care by health care providers. Compassion signifies “a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering” (Compassion, n.d.). Nurses and other health care providers provide selfless service, tireless dedication, compassion, and often neglect their personal needs, which

When people think about nurses, many ideas come to mind. They think of the hideous old starched, white uniforms, a doctor’s handmaiden, the sexy or naughty nurse, or a torturer. The media and society have manipulated the identity and role of nurses. None of these ideas truly portray nurses and what they do. Nurses are with the patients more than the doctors. People do not realize how little they will encounter the doctor in the hospital until they are actually in the hospital. People quickly realize how important nurses are. Because nurses interact with their patients constantly, nurses are the ones who know the patients best.

Compassionate care is a big talking point right now in the media and within the healthcare sector with the Francis report being published earlier this year regarding the failings by Mid Staffordshire and Scotland are now waiting for their own report to be issued regarding the failings at the Vale of Leven in Dumbarton. The nursing and midwifery council have already started on some the imperative changes to be made that the Francis report issued. The chief executive of the nursing and midwifery council has said in her executive statement regarding the Francis report that they are to re-examine the current teaching that nurses receive and the professional standards. Smith, J. (Nursing and Midwifery Council) all of these failings are all relate d to compassionate care. The people who died in these hospitals were clearly not heard when they complained of feeling unwell and did not receive compassionate care so why was this? Next to be discussed is compassion fatigue and how this may reflect onto nursing practice in providing sufficient compassion.

Sawbridge and Hewison (2015) believe that compassion is important to the delivery of patient care. However, professionals are working in environments that are increasingly targeted which can take the professionals away from delivering compassionate care (Baverstock and Finley 2016). This assignment aims to discuss how important and how realistic it is for health and social care leaders to balance compassion with effective and efficient service delivery. It aims to do this by exploring what is meant by the term compassion and the influence that it has on patient care. The author will then move on to discuss the impact compassion has on service delivery, considering if professionals need to balance compassion with effective and efficient care delivery including the if compassion is in fact required to deliver effective care.

Respect is vital to any relationship because it provides a base for fair and unbiased treatment of one another. Without respect for the worth of each individual and his expertise it would be difficult to act as a team. Just as critical to the function of a team is integrity. Integrity ensures that the nurse is acting honestly and holds herself to both moral and professional standards. Responsibility is essential in all nursing practice, but is particularly necessary when integrating care with other disciplines and professionals. As the functions of a healthcare team become more individually specific, the ability rely on each person to perform her part is crucial. Finally, compassion is the framework for all nursing action. While it is widely accepted that compassion for patients is part of nursing, compassion for fellow professionals is necessary too. In conjunction with respect, compassion allows the team to function by accepting each individual’s specific perspective and acknowledging the importance of their skills.

Compassion and respect are essential attitudes for nursing practice. Compassion has been described as the “wounding of the heart” or a

. This exploratory study used a cross sectional survey method (Hopper, Craig, Janvir, Wetsel, Reimels, Anderson, Greenvilee & Clemson, 2010, p. 422). Compassion satisfaction and fatigue subscales were measured using the Professional Quality of Life, using ProQOL R-IV instrument (Hopper, et al. 2010, p. 423). Despite study limitations which were small sample size, authors concluded that recognising the signs and symptoms, and identifying best practice interventions and raising awareness, will lead to the development of ongoing support programs for hospital nurses (Hopper, et al., 2010, p. 427).

When choosing to pursue a career in the health care field, most enter the workplace with the desire to help and provide care for patients who are critically ill (Lombardo & Eyre, 2011). Far too often, these health professionals who were once sympathetic and caring become victims of compassion fatigue (Lombardo & Eyre, 2011). As a working health professional it is ones duty to compassionately care for the sick, wounded and traumatized patients, which involves being exposed daily to the patient’s pain, suffering and trauma (Coetzee & Klopper, 2010). Experiencing this type of trauma first hand is an un-recognized side effect of being a health care professional (Briscoe, 2014). It is easy to get wrapped up in patients, their

According to Coetzee and Hester (2010) compassion fatigue was adopted as a synonym for secondary traumatic stress disorder. The aim of their 2010 concept analysis of the topic was to further define compassion fatigue as it applies to the nursing practice. They describe the process of compassion fatigue from just simply discomfort to compassion stress and finally fatigue. (p.1) Their analysis describes how damaging compassion fatigue can be on a nurse’s ability to provide compassionate care. The information is vital to the field of nursing and the outcomes of our patients. Specifically, it plays an important role in my personal practice. It’s a nurse responsibility to provide compassion care for the ill. In the process nurses are exposed daily to their patient’s pain trauma, and their struggles. This and other factors such as unsafe work conditions can take a toll on nurses and their functionality.

Compassion represents an “acknowledgement of another’s suffering and is accompanied by the expression of a desire to ease or end that suffering.” (Van der Cingal, 2009, p. 124) This is a fundamental characteristic usually found in health care workers and nurses especially. In one twelve hour shift, a nurse’s job can change from taking vitals and administering medications to performing life saving measures

To observe the trust values as a trainee assistant practitioner the six fundamental values I need to maintain in mind are Care, Compassion, Communication, Competence, Commitment, and Courage. NHS Commissioning Board (2012), the 6Cs were developed in 2012 as part of compassion in practice. The 6Cs encapsulate the values and behaviors of the essence to the legal transfer of high quality, compassionate care Beal, J (2014). Care is core business and that of our organisations and the care we deliver helps the individual person and improves the health of the whole community. WUTH (2012) Caring defines us and our work. A person receiving care expects it to be right for them, consistently, throughout every stage of their life Beal, J (2014). Compassion is how care is given through relationships based on empathy, respect and dignity. I believe that nursing is an occupation consisting of professional individuals that exhibit and express

Compassion is a crucial aspect of nursing; it involves seeing the patients as more than just a medical problem. Patients look to nurses as a source of comfort to help them deal with their emotions and understand their medical problems. In Norway, a study was conducted to find the role of compassion in nursing and