Preaching Compassionate Health Care

I’m thinking of hiring the Archbishop of Westminster as a spokesman for the Schwartz Center. The Head of England and Wales’ Roman Catholic Church recently urged U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS) to do more to create a culture of “true compassion and healing,” which he defined as “a deep respect and attentive care of the whole person…genuine care characterized by a sense of humility, a profound respect for others, and a refusal to see them as no more than a medical or behavioral problem to be tackled and resolved.” Archbishop Vincent Nichols made his remarks at a Mass for the sick at Westminster Cathedral. (Guardian)

I’m not sure if the archbishop knows this, but the NHS is trying to create a more compassionate system, and one prong of its plan is Schwartz Center Rounds. The Rounds®, a facilitated forum where healthcare professionals from all disciplines come together to talk about difficult emotional and social issues that arise in caring for patients, are being piloted at two NHS hospitals. The hope is that they will usher in a new era of patient-centered care across the system.

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