Recent news articles have campaigned for people to #BeKind after tragic events around a well known and well liked, TV presenter. While it is a good idea to encourage people to be kind, being kind in itself is not going to improve nursing practice.  However, using real life stories and weaving them together into a larger narrative can help us to improve practice . Gathering stories from people is not useful if they are not acted upon and can in some instances make people feel worse, so it is important to be able to say what you will be doing with the story and how it can help others to be provided with better care. Teaching people about compassion is also a good way to help them to reflect upon their own practice and to develop their longlife learning.

A great example of using stories wisely, is the Care Opinion website where people  post their stories about local hospital care and managers reply to the story saying how it will change or improve practice. This site can also be used for teaching about compassion and  in some instances research.  For example a person posted about the care received during an Extended Hospital Stay  

Universality – the person commented on how the doctors were empathic and  listened to them and how the nurses were “human” in their approach to caring for the person.

Diversity – the person commented on how they were treated with respect for their individual differences by the doctors and how the nurses were sympathetic to their needs.

Recovery – the person then commented on how the nursing staff were lovely (kind) competent and professional  and that the doctors provided excellent care in helping them to recover.

This story demonstrates how my Empowerment Model of Compassionate Care can and does work in everyday practice. I am sure many staff working in health and social care can demonstrate their compassionate practice using this model and using feedback and stories of others to provide evidence of their compassionate care. Often when we are being kind we are actually being very compassionate but we must always reflect on our practice in this way, so that we can all learn to teach, demonstrate and develop compassionate practice more.