Our mission is to spread kindness in healthcare. Because kinder healthcare care is safer healthcare. When healthcare staff work in kinder cultures not only does their wellbeing improve, patient wellbeing does too. When people experience kindness in stressful clinical situations, they get better outcomes. And being kind has its benefits - people who demonstrate kindness are calmer, happier, more productive and less stressed.
Yet there is an epidemic of unkindness in healthcare. Around 25% of NHS staff say they have experienced bullying in the past year. Our research shows colleagues’ poor behaviour is the #1 cause of disengagement in the NHS. These unkind behaviours you see everyday break down the teamwork that’s essential for high quality care. They make mistakes and errors more likely. They make colleagues miserable. And they are contagious. But there is a solution. At A Kind Life, over the past ten years, we have helped more than 50 healthcare organisations to nurture more consistently kind, safe cultures. And we have distilled our learning into our Kindness into Action blended learning modules. Cultivating kindness: what kindness looks like, and why it’s essential, in healthcare Undoing unkindness: the true meaning of incivility and its impact on patients and staff Kinder feedback: amplifying the positive and speaking up to reduce the negative