Nursing Ethics; 14: 4, 522-534. Compassionate care is a fundamental aspect of nursing, and is an important value that is embedded in nurses’ professional standards and codes of practice. It is also a vital aspect of good nursing care (Johnson, 2008). In 2012, chief nursing officers (CNO) in England published a policy on compassion in response to serious criticisms of patients’ care. Compassionate care makes patients more comfortable when they’re in pain, feeling ill or suffering from mental or emotional stress. Click here for more Guided learning units. The Guardian, 18 June 2008. Torjuul, K. et al (2007) Compassion and responsibility in surgical care. Johnson, M. (2008) Can compassion be taught? These are the sources and citations used to research Care compassion and communication. Teachers and mentors in both clinical and more formal educational environments may impart their own values and it is usually assumed that these influences will be negative, leading to “compassion fatigue” or burnout. London: DH. Communication is the transfer of information between or among people. The practice of nursing involves continuous communication between the nurse and the patient, family, the nurse’s co-workers and colleagues (Sully and Dallas, 2005). Pearcey, P. (2007) Tasks and routines in 21st century nursing: student nurses’ perceptions. The essential skills cluster states that student nurses need to provide competent and confidential care, treat patients like partners and in a dignified manner, provide care without discrimination in a warm, sensitive and compassionate way. Ethical Principles and the Code. Consideration also needs to be given to the most appropriate method of measuring compassion, how it can be identified in nursing applicants and developed in student nurses. Neil Davison, BN, DipN, FETC, Cert Ed, ONC, RGN, is lecturer and teaching fellow; Katherine Williams, MA, AdvDipEd, DipN, Cert Ed, RGN, is lecturer; both at Bangor University. 26 June 2014 People in their final days and hours of life can expect to receive the high standard can deliver care safely, competently and with compassion Following the publication of More Care, less. 2013: McLean 2012 and Waugh et al. These requirements form the basis of the first essential skills cluster, which stipulates key skills and behaviours that must be demonstrated to meet the standards for registration with the Nursing and Midwifery Council. This is problematic because exactly what constitutes compassion is not clear, and trying to identify evidence of compassion in applicants is a difficult task. This is thought to result from exposure to the realities of professional life including trying to meet patients’ needs while coping with the demands of the service and managers (Johnson, 2008). Nursing Forum; 42: 2, 48-55. Conditions that encourage compassion in nursing practice also need to be explored. If nurses claim to genuinely care for their patients, then without compassion their caring may be incomplete and lacking. Compassion, or caring can be viewed as “nursing’s most precious asset” (Schantz, 2007), a fundamental element of nursing care (Dietze and Orb, 2000), and as one of the strengths of the profession. compassion satisfaction - High quality nursing care – what is it and how can we best ensure its delivery? Cummings, Chief Nursing Officer for England and Viv Bennett, Director of Nursing at the Department of Health. Compassion is not a new concept within healthcare. Atkins, S. and Murphy, K. ... NMC: Working towards a new code for nurses | Nursing in Practice. Leadership and the Business of Caring, Nurses to be rated on how compassionate and smiley they are, Exploring how to enable compassionate care in hospital to improve patient experience, The NHS Constitution: the NHS Belongs to Us All, High Quality Care for All: NHS Next Stage Review Final Report, The Code: Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics for Nurses and Midwives, Essential Skills Clusters (ESCs) for Pre-registration Nursing Programmes. It seems entirely appropriate for a caring-based discipline such as nursing to specify the fundamental elements needed for professional practice. She offered the perspective that nursing has a functional component or “doing” role, as well as a “being” role. The nurse has a duty to provide care and promote health and wellbeing of the patient, therefore, in moments of suffering it is important to provide compassion (Cingel 2009). NMC Code set to highlight importance of delivering fundamental care to both living and dying. The feedback suggested that if nurses care ‘for’ the patient rather than caring ‘about’ them, they can play a compassionate role in nursing care as required by professional nursing practices. This article aims to support and guide nurses in developing their capacity to be compassionate. The first in this two-part unit on compassion examines the concept of compassion, and how it can be identified and measured in practice. Compassion in practice is an important quality for a nurse, the ability to show kindness will make the patient feel respected and valued. Journal of Advanced Nursing; 26: 999-1004. There is agreement in nursing literature and practice that the delivery of compassionate care is more than the competent execution of clinical skills; it involves a “doing role” and a “being role”. Nursing Standard. Ottawa: Canadian Hospital Association Press. Nursing Standard; 18: 34, 22-23. These are character traits that enable professionals to use their cognitive and psychomotor skills of … (2002) Caring, The Human Mode of Being: A Blueprint for the Health Professions. Pearcey (2007) found student nurses considered that it was doing the little things for patients that constituted a caring approach. Expressive caring changes nursing actions into caring (Woodward, 1997). This article encourages nurses to identify their personal and professional values, to understand how these can influence their attitudes and behaviours. London: NMC. Nurses themselves have to appreciate that clinical practice is changing and will continue to do so, and need to recognise that advanced clinical skills and compassionate care are not mutually exclusive; high tech do… The nursing curricula which reflects these technical skills [24,25] has been criticised for moving away from the compassionate and basic nursing care to more technical skills and subsequently squeezing compassion out of nursing programme with suggestions that it can leave patients to perceive qualified nurses as less compassionate because of the technical aspect of the profession [9,132]. Claire Grant’s nursing career has taken her around the world, with spells…, Please remember that the submission of any material is governed by our, EMAP Publishing Limited Company number 7880758 (England & Wales) Registered address: 7th Floor, Vantage London, Great West Road, Brentford, United Kingdom, TW8 9AG, We use cookies to personalize and improve your experience on our site. Alan Johnson, the health secretary until June 2009, also viewed compassion as important (Carvel, 2008). Compassionate care enables patients to remain independent and retain their dignity (Dietze and Orb, 2000). In May 2009, the government published a set of over 200 quality indicators, with 53 on patient experience, covering dignity and respect and focusing on the person (The NHS Information Centre for Health and Social Care, 2009).