National Wellbeing Hub's Podcast
National Wellbeing Hub's Podcast
Why kindness?
Recently-retired GP Dr Elizabeth Kelly explores The Courage to be Kind, a Carnegie UK Trust report focusing on the importance of kindness in care settings in Scotland. In conversation with health journalist Pennie Taylor, Carnegie Associate Dr Kelly discusses the transformational potential of kindness from a range of angles. Across six short podcasts, they talk about learning from The Courage to be Kind, as well as work by Julia Unwin and others. In addition to signposting useful resources (including those on the National Wellbeing Hub), they share ideas and approaches for embedding kindness in the workplace.
Post-COVID, there's a new vision emerging for reshaping the way we all live and work. At its heart is the concept of kindness, and there's a gathering global movement exploring how that can be harnessed for the greater good. In Scotland, the Carnegie UK Trust has investigated the role of kindness in the healthcare response to the first wave of the COVID pandemic. Its report, The Courage to be Kind, reveals valuable insights to inform holistic service recovery for the benefit of staff, patients and the system as a whole. I'm Penny Taylor, health journalist, and I'm joined by Dr. Elizabeth Kelly, the recently retired GP who's been working with the Carnegie UK Trust to explore the role of kindness in the healthcare system. But before we get into your findings, Elizabeth, why did you think of examining kindness in the first place? Surely it's a bit of a nebulous concept for scientific study.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you, Penny. It's great to be able to chat to you about this. The reason I got involved and really kind of drawn to the concept of kindness, it is the basic tenets of actually what good care is about. As a doctor, as a leader within health care, I see an increasing amount of narrative about money and wealth. and balancing the books and yes, we're a tax funded system, but we've got a duty to really look at actually what's important to delivering care and kindness and humanness and the relationship of that is fundamental to both why people come into the care service to deliver the care, but also to the care that people experience. How did you go about the research? It's not research, Penny. What we did, we had a gathering community of emergent leaders in Scotland who were passionate about kindness on the back of the Julia Unwin report that Carnegie produced called Kindness, Emotions and Human Relationships, the Blind Spot in Public Policy. We gathered some clinical fellows, some people involved in Project Lift. And before the pandemic struck, we had a real community of people that were engaged and being invited to speak to national conferences. Pandemic struck, as it did with all of us, and meetings, conferences, face-to-face all went. But that very essence of those people who we had been working with and talking to being prepared to give of their experiences of that first wave, the emerging out of lockdown between May, June and July, and then coming back together again in September, fearing a winter resurgence of lockdown, developed issues. really powerful conversations both that were valued by those that gave them that opportunity to reflect on how they were but also gave us some real richness of themes about common purpose about innovation things that people were passionate about and felt had made a real difference
SPEAKER_00:And you were speaking largely or solely really to medics, weren't you? You were looking at their experience on the pandemic front line. Do you think there are lessons for other people in that then?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, absolutely. For all of us, for all of us within our own families, within communities, within our government and politicians. What is it that actually... makes us flourish and fly, Penny. It is often, it is the human relationships that we have, those random acts of kindness that we give and receive every day, the relational kindness that we have with other people. And fundamentally, I would argue that if you can hone all of that positivity and opportunity into difficult conversations, whether it be within your teams, whether it be with government, then you can have conversations that get into the right places with dignity and respect. predicated on kindness, that moves us into a different conversation.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, throughout our podcast episodes, we're going to look at different angles on kindness. But what do you hope is done with your report?
SPEAKER_01:Two things, I think. One is that people are engaged with it. And perhaps as individuals think, how am I? How am I really? How am I taking the time to reflect on what this period of this last year has been like for me as a person in the role that I deliver at work. And actually, what messages do I want to give to others round about me, whether I'm a member of a team, whether I'm leading or whether I'm operating at a board or national level. But also, I would think there are some important things coming out of it about the things that make a difference. So we learnt about common purpose, we learnt about how important it was actually that these conversations were, peer-to-peer support, time to reflect, time to acknowledge when you weren't okay and time to acknowledge when things were going really well. And I think overall that sense that, let's be honest, the way in which the health and care service are measured and managed, perhaps wasn't delivering the best outcomes for people and the sense that there's a real opportunity to do something different. But Penny, I keep coming back, if we lose sight of the humanness of us all and the kindness, I don't think we'll get into a conversation that enables that change.
SPEAKER_00:It's interesting that there's a global conversation taking place about this. I'm noticing on Twitter the word kindness coming up often, but also people talk a lot about compassion. For you, is there a difference between compassion and kindness?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, I think there is. If you look at the dictionary definitions, which... So compassion is something... is about deep listening, but it's also about that sort of... you give off compassion to somebody in a difficult situation or certainly in my role as a GP, you hope to be compassionate, have empathy, have some, it's not an, I don't say it's an equal relationship, whereas kindness is something that transcends everybody. Everybody understands kindness. And I think it is about recognising this is also kindness to those that are delivering care as well as those that are receiving care.
SPEAKER_00:There's an interesting concept as well being talked about, which is radical kindness. What's that?
SPEAKER_01:That for me really excites me, Penny. And I suppose it touches on what I was saying before, that if we take pre-COVID and COVID and then the opportunities for post-COVID, there is something about an honest conversation about what a health and care service might deliver. And how it's being performance managed and how the current system of performance management pre-COVID probably drew leaders into much more around about risk, about data, about quantitative elements. And perhaps we'd argue that the humanness of care got squeezed out. And I think there's an imbalance there, the imbalance of the lexicon of risk and governance and data against risk. the lack of emphasis and credibility about stories, humanness, relationships and experience. It is that latter, I would argue, that really makes a difference when you're coming into a care service vulnerable and unwell.
SPEAKER_00:It's interesting because I think for those of us outside the care world, We would make an assumption, I think, that kindness would be kind of hardwired into everybody in there, or we would hope so. Why isn't it?
SPEAKER_01:So I think there is a bit of a challenge back to you. I think there is a huge amount of kindness that is delivered and is present within our society. our society and also we've seen it within communities and we've seen it in the way that people have been cared for with very distressing symptoms and COVID so I would wouldn't want anybody to go away without thinking that kindness isn't current now but there are environments and we can all think of teams that we've worked in where kindness is not there that you can see people doing the job but actually just can't wait until they get home and you can see other teams where kindness is there where people look out for each other their backs are covered they go the extra mile and outcomes are outcomes are improved, but also that sense of worth and purpose is improved for those working in the system. I think the Sturrock report was important, Penny, here. John Sturrock was asked to go and look at allegations of bullying and harassment in NHS Highland. He reported in, I think, 2019. He drew in his conclusion that kindness is what is needed. And I think Having been a health board chair, there is an expectation and an attitude that has developed that is increasingly about delivering the set targets. And I believe that we have lost sight of looking after ourselves and our staff, because fundamentally, whatever your role is, you are important to delivering care for people and therefore improving their outcomes. And I think there is a mismatch between the organisation's targets and drivers and actually the drivers for people coming into the organisation to care.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you very much, Dr. Elizabeth Kelly. There we were exploring why kindness, looking at the background to your report. In other editions of this podcast, we delve deeper into individual aspects of it. So thank you very much for now. This is The Courage to be Kind, a podcast exploring the role of kindness in health and social care workplaces in Scotland. More episodes and more information can be found on the Carnegie UK Trust