Kindness: a practical support guide for nurses (and patients)
Kindness is an integral part of nursing, and is highly valued by patients. Find out how it can enhance care and team working and why it trumps ‘resilience’
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How does kindness – and also unkindness – affect working relationships and patient care?
Kindness, a fundamental quality in nursing, is the topic of the latest Nursing Standard podcast.
How kindness affects patient care and teams
The episode explores what it means to be kind, and how kindness influences person-centred care and team relations.
Our guest is King’s College London lecturer in adult nursing William Gage, who has written a popular CPD article for Nursing Standard on the importance of kindness.
Kindness is a highly valued part of nursing – not an ‘added extra’
Mr Gage speaks to Nursing Standard editor Flavia Munn about how unkind behaviour can affect a nurse’s ability to respond effectively and learn.
He also explains the meaning of purposeful behaviour and how kindness is not an ‘added extra’ but the quality patients most value in their experience of care.
Mr Gage outlines kindness as the practical support nurses – and people in general – give to one another, and its role in helping people recover from a setback.
He also delves into compassionate leadership and speaks about why kindness trumps ‘resilience’, which he describes as an unhelpful term in nursing.
More Nursing Standard podcasts
Further information
- Kindness in nursing practice: CPD quiz
- Compassionate leadership: how to support your team when fixing the problem seems impossible
- ‘Kindness is infectious’: meet our RCN Nurse of the Year 2022
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