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The University of Southampton
Public Policy|Southampton

Creating Learning Environments For Compassionate Care

Project Lead: Professor Jackie Bridges, Professor of Older People's Care

What is it?

In CLECC, all staff from participating teams attend whole team learning activities (which may be in the form of a study day), with a focus on team building and understanding colleagues’ and patients’ experiences. Then a senior nurse educator supports the team to try new ways of working in the team, including regular supportive discussions on supporting each other and improving care. Each team manager attends action learning groups to develop their compassionate care leadership role. Two team members receive additional training in doing observations of care and feeding back to colleagues.

What did we do?

We piloted CLECC with nursing teams on four wards in two English hospitals, with two other wards continuing with business as usual. We interviewed staff, and observed CLECC activities, to help us understand if it can be easily put into practice and if changes are needed in future. We also tested evaluation methods, including ways to measure compassion, and making sure we could recruit enough older patients in a future study. We included a third English hospital in a follow-up project and have also piloted CLECC in an in-patient mental health setting.

What did we find?

We found that CLECC can be made to work with nursing teams on NHS general hospital wards and that staff felt it improved their capacity to be compassionate. We also learned that we could improve CLECC to help staff carry on using it, by, for example, helping senior nurses to understand their role in supporting staff to use CLECC. Our findings also highlight the value of making sure that teams are ready for programmes like CLECC before it is implemented.

Update

We are finalising a CLECC toolkit for organisations and teams interested in using it to make improvements.

For more information please contact [email protected]

Professor Jackie Bridges
Click here for staff profile

Professor Jackie Bridges' programme of work focuses on the organisation and delivery of health care to older people with complex needs. She leads a major programme of research focused on professional work and organisational change related to older people's care, and steers the development and delivery of associated educational provision within Health Sciences. Jackie leads the Ageing and Dementia research group and is an investigator for NIHR ARC Wessex, helping to lead the ARC Ageing and Dementia work in Wessex and nationally.

Policy Brief | Creating Learning Environments for Compassionate Care (CLECC) Project Listing | Creating Learning Environments for Compassionate Care (CLECC) in mental health settings: an implementation study Toolkit | CLECC Toolkit and background: Creating Learning Environments for Compassionate Care (CLECC)
Article | Caring for carers. How a new approach centres on nurse welfare in the shadow of covid-19 pressures

References and Further Reading


An overview description of the CLECC programme

Bridges, J., Fuller, A., 2015. Creating Learning Environments for Compassionate Care (CLECC): a programme to promote compassionate care by health and social care teams. International Journal of Older People Nursing 10 (1), 48-58. https://doi.org/10.1111/opn.12055

Published evaluations of CLECC

Bridges, J., Pickering, R.M., Barker, H., Chable, R., Fuller, A., Gould, L., Libberton, P., Mesa Eguiagaray, I., Raftery, J., Aihie Sayer, A., Westwood, G., Wigley, W., Yao, G., Zhu, S., Griffiths , P., 2018. Implementing the Creating Learning Environments for Compassionate Care programme (CLECC) in acute hospital settings: a pilot RCT and feasibility study. Health Services and Delivery Research 6 (33), 1-166. https://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/hsdr/hsdr06330/#/abstract

Bridges, J., May, C.R., Fuller, A., Griffiths , P., Wigley, W., Gould, L., Barker, H., Libberton, P., 2017. Optimising impact and sustainability: a qualitative process evaluation of a complex intervention targeted at compassionate care. BMJ Quality & Safety 26 (12), 970-977. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2017-006702

Gould, L., Griffiths, P., Barker, H., Libberton, P., Mesa Eguiagaray, I., Pickering, R.M., Shipway, L.J., Bridges, J., 2018. Compassionate care intervention for hospital nursing teams caring for older people: a pilot cluster randomised controlled trial BMJ Open 8, e018563. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2017-018563

Bridges, J., Lee, K., Griffiths , P., Frankland, J., 2019. Creating Learning Environments for Compassionate Care (CLECC): The implementation and evaluation of a sustainable team-based workplace learning intervention. University of Southampton, Southampton. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/435467/

Other research from CLECC programme of work

Barker, H., Griffiths, P., Gould, L., Mesa-Eguiagaray, I., Pickering, R., Bridges, J., 2016. Quantity and quality of interaction between staff and older patients in UK hospital wards: a descriptive study. International Journal of Nursing Studies 62, 100-107. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2016.07.018

Blomberg, K., Griffiths, P., Wengstrom, Y., May, C.R. & Bridges, J. (2016) Interventions for compassionate nursing care: a systematic review. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 62, 137-155. doi: 10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2016.07.009

Bridges, J., Griffiths, P., Oliver, E., Pickering, R.M., 2019. Hospital nurse staffing and staff–patient interactions: an observational study. BMJ Quality & Safety 28 (9), 706-713. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2018-008948

Mesa Eguiagaray, I., Böhning, D., McLean, C., Griffiths, P., Bridges, J., Pickering, R.M., (2016). Inter-rater reliability of the QuIS as an assessment of the quality of staff-patient interactions. BMC Medical Research Methodology 16 (171), https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12874-016-0266-4

McLean, C., Griffiths , P., Mesa-Eguiagaray, I., Pickering, R.M., Bridges, J., (2017). Reliability, feasibility, and validity of The Quality of Interactions Schedule (QuIS) in acute hospital care: an observational study. BMC Health Services Research 17 (380), https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12913-017-2312-2

Nursing Times series on CLECC

Maxwell, E., Lamont, T., 2019. Lifecycle of a research project 1: why research into care matters. Nursing Times 115 (2), 43-44.

Bridges, J., 2019. Life cycle of a research project 2: designing and planning the study.  . Nursing Times 115 (2), 45-47.

Bridges, J., Griffiths, P., 2019. Life cycle of a research project 3: reading research findings. Nursing Times 115 (3), 37-39.

Bridges, J., 2019. Life cycle of a research project 4: taking the research project further. Nursing Times 115 (4), 42-43.

Tunney, J., 2019. Lifecycle of a research project 5: using results to shape clinical practice. Nursing Times 115 (5), 43-44.

May, R., Maxwell, E., 2019. Lifecycle of a research project 6: how research might guide policy. Nursing Times 115 (6), 3-4.

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