What is a Culture of Care
A Culture of Care put simply is one that feels like care is at the centre of it – that patients and staff feel cared for and are able to provide the care they want to for others.
In 2023, NHS England convened a group with strong representation from the sector, lived experience leadership and involvement, and people who experience inequality in accessing and using mental health services, to develop a set of Culture of Care standards that describe in detail what this means.
These 76 standards, across 12 core commitments, form the bedrock of the programme and underpin all of our design and delivery. The core commitments are:
| 1. Lived experience | We value lived experience, including in paid roles, at all levels – design, delivery, governance and oversight. |
| 2. Safety | People on our wards feel safe and cared for. |
| 3. Relationships | High-quality, rights-based care starts with trusting relationships and the understanding that connecting with people is how we help everyone feel safe. |
| 4. Staff support | We support all staff so they can be present alongside people in their distress. |
| 5. Equality | We are inclusive and value difference. We take action to promote equity in access, treatment and outcomes. |
| 6. Avoiding harm | We actively seek to avoid harm and traumatisation, and acknowledge harm when it occurs. |
| 7. Needs based | We respect people’s own understanding of their distress. |
| 8. Choice | Nothing about me without me. We support the fundamental right for patients and (as appropriate) their support network to be engaged in all aspects of their care. |
| 9. Environment | Our inpatient spaces reflect the value we place on our people. |
| 10. Things to do on the ward | We have a wide range of patient requested activities every day. |
| 11. Therapeutic support | We offer people a range of therapy and support to give them hope that things can get better. |
| 12. Transparency | We have open and honest conversations with patients and each other, and name the difficult things. |
Learn more about the guiding principles:
A trauma-informed approach
Shirley McNicholas, one of our Trauma-Informed Advisors explains her understanding of a trauma-informed approach is.
Racial equity and an approach based on anti-racism
Jacqui Dyer MBE, Director of Black Thrive Global explains why it is important this programme takes an approach based on anti-racism.
Autism informed care
The team at Neurodiverse Connection outline why an autism-informed approach to mental health care is needed, what it looks like and the positive impact it has on accessibility and outcomes for autistic individuals.
How are we approaching this in SWYPFT?
We are currently working with NHSE and various other organisations on a quality improvement project regarding Culture of Care. This diagram shows the components of the programme:
Specifically, this breaks down into three distinct processes within SWYPFT:
- Quality improvement: A Culture of Care
The National Collaboration Centre for Mental Health (NCCMH) formally launched their element of the programme in May 2024, and have 61 providers of inpatient mental health, learning disability and autism services in the country registered to take part. Taking an anti-racism, trauma informed, autism informed approach, NCCMH will provide support alongside SWYPFT’s integrated change team; lived experience creative practioners and our already established quality improvement trust-wide processes to deliver:
- Ward level quality improvement coaching:
This is a pilot over the next two years on four SWYPFT wards:
- Melton (PICU)
- Beamshaw (Acute)
- Sandal (Forensics)
- Enfield Down (Rehab)
We have worked actively with the wards in benchmarking how they and the organisation currently align to the 76 standards across Culture of Care. The outcome of this activity supports the development of our quality improvement projects across the four wards.
- Direct coaching and mentoring with executive teams:
Two of SWYPFT’s executive team, our director of nursing and quality professions, Darryl Thompson and our chief medical officer, Subha Thiyagesh are providing support to the Culture of Care programme throughout.
- Ward manager development
The Foundation of Nursing Studies’ (FoNS) element of the programme will co-create safe, critical and creative learning environments specifically for ward managers.
The programme will support individuals to develop knowledge, skills and confidence in leading and facilitating person-centred cultures of care, engaging with persons with lived experience and inspiring teams through role modelling, collaboration, inclusion and participation. FoNS is a UK-based nursing charity.
We have nominated ward managers undertaking this training to feedback into the Overall Culture of Care programme. We are also aligning the Ward Manager Development Programme with our own Leadership and Management training support.
- Staff care & development
The Public Service Consultants (The PSC) and Virginia Mason Institute (VMI) – alongside InHealth Associates, ImROC (Implementing Recovery through Organisational Change) and the Institute of Group Analysis (IGA) – will offer a co-produced support package for ward staff to develop team cultures and systems so that people on the ward feel safe and cared for.
PSC will focus on high quality relational care, positive informal interactions on the ward, and psychologically safe environment.
These organisations will provide:
- In-person team diagnostic visits and culture of care training
- Reflective practice training and supervision
- Project-based coaching for ward teams
- Individual coaching for ward staff
- For more information about the Culture of Care programme and how SWYPFT is managing the implementation of the programme please speak to #allofusimprove
- For more general information about the Culture of Care national programme please visit the Royal College of Psychiatrists website
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