What are The 6Cs in Healthcare and Why are They Important?

So what are the 6Cs?

• 🔎 A central set of values of the ‘Compassion in Practice’ strategy, developed by the NHS commissioning board as a method of developing and maintaining high quality patient care.

• 🔎 Drawn up by NHS England chief nursing office and launched in December 2012

• 📚 A set of core values essential to compassionate care

• 👉 Initially was designed for nurses and midwives but now extended to all NHS staff

• ⚠️ Has now been seen in medical school interviews, as well as core to many other healthcare discipline interviews such as nursing, midwifery, paramedic science and operating department practice.

• 🔎 You can talk about where you personally experienced these values, perhaps in your work experience.

Care

📚 Care is our core business and that of our organisations and the care we deliver helps the individual person and improves the health of the whole community.

📚 Caring defines us and our work. People receiving care expect it to be right for them, consistently, throughout every stage of their life

• 😀 We should help patients remain active, connected, and independent in their own homes, or a place of their choice, for as long as they are able

• Joining up health and social care services so they work together for the patient.

• Examples of good quality care would be listening to patients wishes, considering their cultural and personal beliefs and working towards what is best for the patient.

Compassion

📚 Compassion is how care is given through relationships based on empathy, respect and dignity – it can also be described as intelligent kindness, and is central to how people perceive their care

• Treat patients kindly, with respect and dignity and recognise each patient as a human with emotions.

• 👂🏻 Listen to patients and let them be heard

• Show empathy and sensitivity

• Respect diversity, dignity, and individuality

Here are some active steps to ensure we treat patients with compassion.

• Actively listening to recipients of care, their families and others involved in their care.

• Giving, inviting, affirming, and learning from feedback, both negative and positive.

• Collaborating across professional boundaries to ensure people receive quality care.

• Inter-professional and organisational working, for example between the hospital and GP surgery.

• Being mindful of behaviours that get in the way of human-to-human connection.

• Celebrating and sharing information, data, what works well, best practice. Not hoarding knowledge.

Competence

📚 Competence means all those in caring roles must have the ability to understand an individual’s health and social needs and the expertise, clinical and technical knowledge to deliver effective care and treatments based on research and evidence

• Reflect on competence and practice. Doctors must have the knowledge and skills to treat the patient and do what is best for them.

• 🔎 Maintain CPD (continuous professional development) end ensure they are up to date with the latest treatments.

• Recruit people with the correct values and in keeping with job specifications

Communication

📚 Communication is central to successful caring relationships and to effective team working. Listening is as important as what we say and do and essential for ‘no decision about me without me’. Communication is the key to a good workplace with benefits for those in our care and staff alike

• Handling information sensitively and confidentially

• Actively listening to patients and accept they have a right to refuse your advice

• Passing on information where and when required based on clinical need

• Detailed record-keeping

• Dealing effectively with complaints

• Effective team working with both internal co-workers and external agencies.

Courage

📚 Courage enables us to do the right thing for the people we care for, to speak up when we have concerns and to have the personal strength and vision to innovate and to embrace new ways of working

Here are some ways you can demonstrate courage in the context of the 6 Cs.

• Take responsibility for the care you provide, for the safety of those in you care and for making judgement calls that affect others.

• Courage to speak up when you notice that something could be done in a more effective way to improve the care you provide.

• “Whistleblowing” when something is wrong, crucially if you have concerns over ill-treatment, abuse or bad practice.

• ⚠️ You may feel uncomfortable, however, you need to move past this, to be honest and brave in order for change to happen.

Commitment

📚 A commitment to our patients and populations is a cornerstone of what we do. We need to build on our commitment to improve the care and experience of our patients, to take action to make this vision and strategy a reality for all and meet the health, care and support challenges ahead

Here are some ways any healthcare worker can demonstrate commitment to patients

• Commitment to developing their own skills and knowledge

• To sharing knowledge

• Working effectively across all sector boundaries,

• To challenge malpractice or negative and discriminatory behaviours in order

• To continually improve the quality of care provided.

• To embrace the 6Cs and embedding them into your everyday practice

👁 How did you do? Ready to develop you interview knowledge and skills and gain confidence in your interviews? 🏆 Come to our Medical School Interview Course.

• 👁 We cram all our interview courses with a variety of engaging, interesting and entertaining learning methods – to ensure that you are prepared for the big day and have an advantage over other candidates.

• 😀 If you are thinking that an interview course could be a little dry and difficult to digest - then prepare to be surprised!

• 🩺 You will be taught by fully qualified NHS doctors who teach medical students from UCLAN and Manchester Medical Schools, as well as supervise foundation year and GP specialist trainee doctors. Teaching and success are in our DNA.

• 📚 We publish our methods, success rates and outcomes. We show you example video tutorials and photos of previous courses, along with testimonials, so you can be sure your training will be excellent.