Courage of Compassion, The: A Journey from Judgement to Connection

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Compassion has been understood in terms of concern for the suffering of others (Goetz, Keltner, & Simon-Thomas, 2010). With self-compassion, however, one is emotionally supportive toward both the self and others when hardship or human imperfection is confronted.” (Yarnell & Neff, 2012).

lessons and examples of good practice from across the health and care system, from both before and during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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The courage of compassion: transforming nurses’ and midwives’ working environments to enable them to flourishThursday 3 December 12:00 - 1:00pm

Let’s talk about that. Let’s enlighten that little flame and see what we can do for the people around us and then… on a larger scale, what can we do for our countries and, even larger, for the world. The reasons why I publish this article here is that I have put all my hope and strength on my generation and those generations that will follow us up. We are the fertile ground where we can build on. And that’s the root we need to cure to improve, empower and enlighten this beautiful world. Ensure all nursing and midwifery staff have the effective support, professional reflection, mentorship and supervision needed to thrive in their roles. Key recommendation 8: Learning, education and development One is to see compassion as the outcome of a path that can be cultivated and developed. You do not in reality cultivate compassion, but you can cultivate, through investigation, the qualities that incline your heart toward compassion. You can learn to attend to the moments when you close and contract in the face of suffering, anger, fear, or alienation. In those moments you are asked to question what difference empathy, forgiveness, patience, and tolerance would make. You cultivate your commitment to turn toward your responses of aversion, anger, or intolerance. With mindfulness and investigation, you find in your heart the generosity and understanding that allow you to open rather than close. (pp. 141-142)” (Hoffman, Grossman, & Hinton, 2011). Ensure health and care environments have compassionate leadership and nurturing cultures that enable both care and staff support to be high-quality, continually improving and compassionate. Compassion“is the feeling that arises in witnessing another’s suffering and that motivates a subsequent desire to help (for similar definitions, see Lazarus, 1991; Nussbaum, 1996, 2001; see Table 1). This definition conceptualizes compassion as an affective state defined by a specific subjective feeling, and it differs from treatments of compassion as an attitude (Blum, 1980; Sprecher & Fehr, 2005) or as a general benevolent response to others, regardless of suffering or blame (Post, 2002; Wispe´, 1986). This definition also clearly differentiates compassion from empathy, which refers to the vicarious experience of another’s emotions (Lazarus, 1991).” (Goetz, Keltner, & Simon-Thomas, 2010).

Before you read this explainer, we invite you to ask yourself two questions…

DeSteno,D. & Valdesolo, P. (2012). The surprising truths about the liar, cheat, sinner (and saint) lurking in all of us. Psychology Today. Fortunately some places are supportive of ensuring this happens but there is more to do...and do it we will. Ensure health and care environments have compassionate leadership and nurturing cultures that enable both care and staff support to be high-quality, continually improving and compassionate. Key recommendation 6: Workload Introduce mechanisms for nursing and midwifery staff to shape the cultures and processes of their organisations and influence decisions about how care is structured and delivered. Key recommendation 2: Justice and fairness

Compassion can be defined as ‘a sensitivity to suffering in self and others with a commitment to try to alleviate and prevent it’ ( Gilbert 2013). 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. Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, a provider of hospital, community and social care in north-east England, uses real-time staff experience data to drive improvement and innovation.

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The report makes for compelling reading and makes some important recommendations about the urgent transformational change that is needed to enable nurses and midwives to thrive in their workplaces.

The impact of the pandemic on the nursing and midwifery workforce has been unprecedented and will be felt for a long time to come. The crisis has also laid bare and exacerbated longstanding problems faced by nurses and midwives, including inequalities, inadequate working conditions and chronic excessive work pressures. The health and wellbeing of nurses and midwives are essential to the quality of care they can provide for people and communities, affecting their compassion, professionalism and effectiveness. We are delighted to be working with The King's Fund as sponsors of an online event in which an expert panel will explore the issues raised in the recent report 'The Courage of Compassion'. The conversation will explore:

Overview

I agree that more emphasis on recruitment is needed as well as a clear plan for supporting students who cannot supplement incomes in the way other students can due to placements. We need more robust career pathways for Nurses so that the emphasis is on demonstration of the competence of the practitioner and using CPD education purposefully to do so .