Why might good people deliver bad care? | Yvonne Sawbridge | TEDxUniversityofBirmingham

Yvonne Sawbridge says that caring professionals offer hard, emotional work. In the same way in which physical labour is recognised and accounted for in management practice, emotional labour needs to be recognised as a role requirement for nurses and other caring professions. All of us have an emotional bank account that is depleted by everything we see and do, and people working in caring professions need support to top this account back up. Yvonne Sawbridge joined HSMC as a Senior Fellow in 2011 and previously worked in the NHS in a variety of posts since qualifying as a nurse and health visitor in the 1980’s. She spent 10 years as a Director of Nursing in a number of PCTs including South Staffs PCT which commissioned from Mid Staffs Hospital, at the time of a public inquiry into failings in the provision of care. Since moving to HSMC in the University of Birmingham, she has written and undertaken research on both the concept of emotional labour and potential interventions to support emotional labourers (healthcare staff specifically) to provide compassionate care. Recognition of this is key to the provision of good patient care, which is her overall motivation. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx