At the core of mental health services is the quality of the relationship between the person using the service and the person working with them. The interaction between them is so important – it is the basis for so much. Do staff behave as if they care, do they behave as if what I think is important, or do they assume that the professionals always know best?
In order to ensure that service users experience empathy from staff, the organisation in which staff work must continually support and enable them to work in that way.
“I do believe that the number one priority is to have caring staff. Number two is to be in an environment which you feel secure in, whether it be nice and quiet and private or boisterous but secure. But definitely having people that care and not just using the job as a, if you like, a way of ending up with a pension at the end of it”.
Outcomes
1. A high level of empathy is demonstrated by all staff in regular contact with users of mental health services.
How it should be monitored
There should be user evaluation of all staff in regular contact with users of services which allows users to comment on individual staff and how they:
• demonstrate through their behaviour that they care
• demonstrate through their behaviour that they think what the user says is important
• demonstrate through their behaviour that they do not assume that they always know what is best for the users of services.
There should be other appropriate mechanisms in place to measure levels of empathy - for example, peer evaluation or management observation and assessment.
2. An organisational culture that supports and enables staff in regular contact with users of mental health services to act in an empathetic manner.
How it should be monitored
At a minimum there should be regular independent and published staff surveys which survey: motivation; levels of trust in the organisation; levels of satisfaction with the organisation; provision of training and support to enable staff to maintain a high level of empathy with clients.