Being treated with compassion makes a big difference to
service users, but promoting and measuring it within a professional
setting will be difficult, writes Andrew
Mickel
Care workers with a long list of routine tasks to complete, and
a fixed amount of time in which to complete them, may be forgiven
for failing to show compassion at times. But compassionate care
makes an enormous difference to service users' lives, says Andrew
Voyce, who uses mental health services in Bexhill.
He explains: "Last week I had a situation with my social housing
landlord, and two fairly high-powered housing people wanted to come
to my flat to discuss the matter. I mentioned this at the day
centre, and staff rearranged the interview so that it took place at
the day centre so that they could support me.
"In the old days you wouldn't get very much of that at all.
You'd usually have to deal with everything yourself and could end
Transform
The use of compassion can transform the standard of care and
improve patients' experience so much that last month health
secretary Alan Johnson announced that metrics to measure the
standard of nursing care in the NHS would include compassion. This
will form part of a quality framework covering patient care in the
workforce strategy of Lord Darzi's review of the NHS.
But could such a system of measuring compassion be effective for
care workers as well? There is no agreement on what exactly
compassion means. At its loosest, it is treated as near-synonymous
with "dignity" and "respect" - a non-specific blend of empathy and
humility that adds a dimension of care beyond the routine
expectations of competency.
As of yet, there has been no word on what form the metrics for
nurses would take.
Dignity
Social care is, in many ways, ahead of nursing in measuring
compassion.
There are already some attempts to stimulate the less
quantifiable side of care such as the role of dignity champions and
the dignity agenda as a whole.
Personalisation could also push compassion further as providers
have more scope to work with users. Lucianne Sawyer, the president
of the UK Home Care Association, PAs with home care workers who, in
extreme examples, are timed to see how long they visit each
user.
"PAs are able to use the time in a much more flexible way in
agreement with the service user, so you can bank time and do
something the user really wants to do, rather than the approach
we've endured over the past few years. That's person-centred,
because it's not based on what services they need, but what they
want to do."
Skill or personality?
Resources do affect how compassionate a care worker can be, but
most people consider it something that should shine through
regardless of working conditions. So underpinning the debate about
trying to measure compassion is the question of whether it is a
developable skill or a personality trait.
Ultimately, attempts to increase compassion rely on triggering
something in care workers themselves. And the results of that, as
shown by Voyce, can be appreciated by users much more than metrics
can measure.
"The impression is that they are generally compassionate people.
They don't let on that they might
be
having a difficult time and still put
your needs first. They must be in very awkward situations, but they
always come up smiling," says Voyce.
• What do you think? Can compassion be measured. Should
it be a key part of the job?
Have your say at CareSpace
• This is an edited version of an article that appeared in
31 July 2008 issue of Community Care under the headline
"Compassion: more than just chemistry/"