What are the care values in health and social care?
The care values in health and social care are codified in the 6C’s of care: care, compassion, competence, communication, courage, and commitment. These 6 care values are a practical and memorable way to guide and inspire the work of care professionals for the benefit of service users.
The 6 health and social care values form the foundation of compassionate care. The aim is to produce care professionals who want to do more than the just basic requirements of their job, and instead are focused on what their service users need.
When care professionals develop and embody these care values, service users will feel cared for, respected, and understood in a way that enhances every aspect of their care experience.
Development of the 6 care values
The 6C’s were announced in December 2012 by Jane Cummings, the Chief Nursing Officer in England, as part of her Compassion in Practice strategy. The 6 care values were developed in conjunction with nurses and care professionals through conferences, meetings, and social media debates. Jane Cummings’ vision was to find a set of values that would promote health and longevity, support independence, and offer comfort to people living with illness.
Context of the 6 care values
At the time the 6C’s were developed, people were living longer, giving rise to more older patients to support, often with multiple and complex needs. Additionally, the public had higher expectations of what health, care and support should offer.
This was transforming the roles of care professionals who found their responsibilities increasing, requiring comprehensive training in new skills and the use of technology. There was also the emergence of multidisciplinary teams where individuals have specific tasks and responsibilities but need to work collaboratively with others to support and care for service users.
Jane Cummings was proud of the achievements of the health and care sector. However, she acknowledged that there were occasional failings, sometimes shockingly severe. She believed that by developing the 6C’s she would create new standards of care and treatment that built on the pledges and rights of the NHS Constitution.
Jane Cummings’ vision was that health and care providers should work with people in a partnership that allowed them to make choices about their health and care.
The 6 areas of action
Jane Cummings set out 6 areas of action where the 6 health and social care values could create the greatest impact for service users.
The 6 areas of action are as follows:
- Helping people to stay independent
- Providing a positive experience of care
- Delivering high quality care
- Building and strengthening leadership
- Ensuring the right staff are in place
- Supporting positive staff experience
Helping people stay independent
Health and care professionals should be committed to improving the public’s health. This means not just treatment of ill health but also prevention, early intervention, and health promotion. The aim is to enable people to remain active and connected in their own homes or other residence of choice. Health and care services can meet this need by providing integrated care at an early stage of engagement.
Providing a positive experience of care
Quality of care is as important as the quality of treatment. People’s experience of care is influenced by more than they treatment they receive. They will be influenced by the care environment, whether they were treated with kindness and respect, and whether they had to tell their story more than once. Accordingly, health and care providers need to actively seek feedback, listen and act on it, and to design frameworks which allow people to have a greater say in the care they receive.
Delivering high quality care
Delivering high quality care needs to be evidence-based. This means measuring outcomes to judge performance and drive improvement. Appropriate metrics can be chosen with input from staff, service users and key partners. Use of the right technology tools will facilitate data collection and reduce costs. Performance data should be made public along with transparency about what service areas are falling short and what is being done to improve them.
Building and strengthening leadership
Strong leadership is important to build a caring and compassionate culture focused on high quality care. Everyone has a role to play in providing leadership within their teams and their organisation. Care professionals on all levels of the organisation should be empowered to lead and motivate their teams to improve the outcomes for service users. Even junior staff can participate in leadership by being encouraged to find ways of improving service quality.
Ensuring the right staff are in place
To deliver the vision of higher quality care, there needs to be the right staff with the right skills and behaviour, deployed in the right roles to meet the needs of their service users. Staff need to be offered learning and development programmes by their organisations to improve their ability to serve with more compassion. Organisations need to understand the required mix of competency, experience and education in their staff and to know the appropriate staff allocation for their particular care settings.
Supporting positive staff experiences
Positive staff experiences drives quality of care, according to research. Thus, staff need to be supported to do their job well. Organisations must ensure staff are nurtured by a culture of care, compassion, and recognition of their work. This should include staff involvement in decision making, promoting healthy and safe work environments, creating rewarding jobs, and embracing innovative working practices and new technologies.
Outcomes of the 6 care values
In May 2016 the NHS commissioned a report on the outcomes achieved after over three years of following the strategy outlined by Compassion in Practice and the 6C’s in December 2012. Staff surveys and interviews found the following:
- The 6C’s helped to refocus the work of care givers. In particular, they helped correct the growing trend of seeking solely technical proficiency by reemphasising the fundamentals of care: being approachable, reliable, friendly, and helpful.
- The 6C’s helped to engage staff in organisational initiatives aimed at encouraging good practice. Staff were more motivated in implementing the initiatives and actively listening to feedback from service users.
- The 6C’s helped staff to stay positive in the face of external criticism, for example some of the harsh comments contained in the Francis Report, and refocus on their core values and motivations.
- The 6C’s were welcomed by staff for highlighting the value and importance of delivering compassionate care. Staff felt that this had a positive impact on the public perception of their work.
