Humanising Healthcare

Share in a movement to change healthcare by valuing the humanity in both patient and professional

Imagine a healthcare context where:

  • Healthcare for the whole person is the norm, which values equally the different aspects of health: physical, mental, social and spiritual health, recognising their interconnectedness
  • Patients are not just seen as problems needing fixing, but as human beings worthy of care
  • Healthcare professionals can thrive in compassionate workplaces

WholeCare recognises that:

  • Most healthcare professionals started out with many of these aspirations, but aspects of their training/working experience have led them to lose much of that for which they hoped
  • Healthcare for the whole person can be both cost effective and rewarding for patient and clinician
  • All clinicians can be enabled to retain and develop their listening skills in order to be a compassionate presence alongside their patients
  • Healthcare for the whole person requires a recognition of spiritual factors which have not been taught, modelled or applied in most clinical settings
  • An intentional focus needs to be given to spiritual factors before healthcare can be truly holistic. Spiritual factors include the terms: spirituality, spiritual dimension, spiritual belief, spiritual health, spiritual wellbeing, spiritual needs, spiritual distress, spiritual pain and spiritual care
  • A recognition of spirituality in both patient and professional fosters compassionate healthcare, inspires a sense of vocation, and reduces compassion fatigue in healthcare professionals

Objectives

WholeCare aims to facilitate the development of a network of like-minded organisations and individuals with the intention of:

• Increasing awareness of the existing evidence base for whole person compassionate healthcare.
• Facilitating changes in clinical training so that whole person compassionate healthcare is both taught and demonstrated
• Encouraging research into whole person compassionate healthcare

Activities

Click on the links below to find more details

A. Giving information about like-minded organisations, allies in humanising healthcare
B. Posting examples of how the inclusion of spiritual health promotes care for the whole person
C. Posting examples of how the inclusion of spiritual health improves staff wellbeing
D. To sharing information about relevant publications, research projects and training events and conferences
Humanising Healthcare is a project supported by a grant from the Dela Fish Foundation