You know things are going
seriously wrong in the world when the newspapers start reporting on their front pages that we are
facing a shortage of fake tan lotion. I have scrubbed the bath too many times after the children have used it, and fake tan is now banned
from the house. With all that has been going on last week in Glasgow and
Westminster, why anyone should be worried about getting a bottle of fake tan is
beyond me. However, having attended a ‘kindness matters’ workshop last
Monday, I shall use the lessons learnt and simply say that each to their own
when it comes to fake tanning. It was a great workshop, more of which later.
First of all, what would you choose to do if you knew you only had 10 minutes
to live?
It's not such a strange question
as it might sound. Back in my younger days, and I am talking many years before
Extinction Rebellion, Insulate UK and Cop26, I was a fully paid up supporter of
Greenpeace, and an advocate of banning the bomb. As a schoolboy I sat in class
and endlessly drew the CND symbol and the ‘make love not war’ slogan instead
of paying attention to whatever the teacher was saying. My great act of protest
was not standing naked outside 10 Downing Street, no it was much worse. I wore
my enamel rainbow warrior Greenpeace badge to Buckingham Palace the day my Dad
got his MBE. We were a generation that feared the Soviet Union sending over a nuclear
missile and annihilating us all. We were told we would have just 10 minutes
warning* of the incoming missile. So, what would you do?
Well, I had my own 10 minute
warning last Monday. It was from those good folk at the Care Quality Commission
(CQC). They let us all know that, in 10 minutes, they were coming on site to do
an inspection of our urgent and emergency services. The last time they were in our
Trust, they found these services ‘inadequate’. A great deal of work had
been done since that time and the service has been completely transformed. We
will have to wait for the official report of the inspection, but no significant
concerns were raised and pleasingly, they noted that our emergency care colleagues
were treating all the patients with great compassion and care. Given that it
was a Monday and the department was running flat out, I thought it was a
wonderful acknowledgement of the great work of our colleagues.
Being compassionate and caring
are tangible examples of kindness shared, and kindness always matters. I didn’t
need to spend my Monday afternoon exploring this notion. I have known for some
time that kindness matters. I haven’t always been good at embracing this idea though,
but over the past few years I have tried much harder to embrace a kindness
first approach. So, I was interested in seeing what else I could learn from the
session. The session was facilitated by the ‘A Kind Life’ organisation. If you haven’t
heard of them before, have a look at their website here. The session was part
of a national programme supported by the NHS England Improvement Civility and
Respect Programme. There will be a session coming to a virtual venue near you soon, and I would highly recommend trying to getting a place at one of
them.
The afternoon started by reminding
ourselves of the NHS People Promise – you can remind yourself here – and then
it was into imagining and/or remembering a good day, and what made it a good
day. An interesting exercise, made more so by sharing with others. I have to
say I love the way you can be effortlessly whizzed into a virtual breakout room
and then whizzed back into the main session. Something difficult to do in real
life without using up lots of time traipsing around a conference centre! The enthusiastic
facilitator (and I’m being kind here), who could be said to be somewhat of a cross
between Gordon Brittas and Bill Oddie, also used the Menti smart phone system
to poll participants whose responses were immediately turned into a word cloud –
very slick and impressive and great fun too!
Of course, it wasn’t just about
having fun. There was a serious side to the afternoon. We explored empathy,
what listening to others might really mean, how to give appreciative feedback, the
impact of bullying and how to create a safer culture, ways to promote curiosity
(a favourite idea of mine, I have to say), and the importance of wellbeing conversations.
All in all, it was an afternoon well spent. Whilst kindness might be difficult to
define, it was a privilege to spend a few hours exploring what it could mean.
For me, the session reinforced my desire to be more generous in the way I am
with others, more generous in my thinking, actions and words. Kindness matters.
As does conditioner. Apparently, conditioners
contain cationic surfactants, which can bind radioactive particles and trap
them in your hair – not a great thing after a nuclear attack. However, I don’t
expect any of us will be experiencing a nuclear attack any time soon (that
said, none of us expected the Covid 19 pandemic). I do know though that as we
enter the Winter season, things will get even tougher in health and social care, both
for our colleagues and for our patients and the folk that make up their families
and communities. Let’s remember, it costs nothing to be kind, we can all spread
kindness every day, and kindness really does matter.
* 10 minutes was the time the ‘Protect
and Survive’ advice reckoned you had to get home – back in 1970 we were
told that following a nuclear attack we would have 10 minutes between the
warning and certain death – although though there was a common belief there was
only a four minute warning to be given – in the 1990’s all the UK ‘four
minute warning’ air-raid signals operated during the Cold War were
dismantled. Today, it is estimated that in the event of nuclear explosion, all
the radioactive material caused by the blast would take 15 minutes to return
back to ground.
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