5997 Compassionate leadership teaching: from the start up

Objectives Compassion can be defined as 'a sensitivity to suffering in self and others with a commitment to try to alleviate and prevent it' (Gilbert 2013). 'Compassionate leadership involves a focus on relationships through careful listening to, understanding, empathising with and supporting other people, enabling those we lead to feel valued, respected and cared for, so they can reach their potential and do their best work.' (West 2021) The NHS is currently stretched to its limits and more funding is not readily available. Therefore, without denying the reality of what it takes to survive in the system, we wanted to develop practices to grow a resilient, efficient, and happier workforce. The evidence is clear that compassionate leadership goes a long way to meeting these needs. Methods We created a series of three 1-hour teaching sessions for doctors in training and consultants in paediatrics at King's College Hospital firstly teaching 'what is compassionate leadership and why is it important', secondly, 'practising self-compassion' and thirdly, 'leading compassionately from your current position'. Results The sessions were well received: we received feedback that sessions were 'really interesting had not heard about compassionate leadership as a concept prior to teaching' 'interactive learned new techniques' 'clear explanation of terms, reflective examples from real life' 'brilliant group style discussions and group reflection'. We scored a mean of 9/10 (10 being strongly agree) for each of 'this session was useful, 'the content was appropriate' 'the session was interesting' and 'I learned something new'. With each cycle of the sessions, we iteratively improved them, including how compassionate leadership training should be adapted to take account of learner needs, particularly in relation to a neurodiverse workforce. Conclusion There was excellent feedback from these sessions from both junior doctors and consultants suggesting there is appetite for compassionate leadership within the paediatric team. We propose to continue these teaching sessions for each trainee rotation and offer them to the wider healthcare teams within our hospital. References Gilbert P, Choden. Mindful compassion. London constable and Robinson. 2013 West M. Compassionate Leadership: Sustaining wisdom, humanity and presence in health and social care': The Swirling Leaf Press. 2021