Final words

Our work over the last few months has been focused mainly on supporting the transition of UK and Ireland Schwartz Rounds sites to the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare. With this process complete, and our closure at the end of this year fast approaching, now is a good moment to reflect on the bigger picture of our work to humanise health and care.

At the end of our Schwartz Rounds conference on 3 December, we ran a short session to celebrate the Point of Care Foundation. Jocelyn Cornwell, our founder and first CEO, spoke eloquently about the beginnings of the Foundation, and the ongoing need to champion humanity in health and care.

We also invited some of our Schwartz mentors and long-term collaborators to share their perspectives. A few remarked on the innovations the Foundation made, such as the introduction of Schwartz Rounds for medical students (and later more broadly to Higher Education Institutions and other non-healthcare settings). Others spoke about the research that the Foundation enabled. Several touched on the charity’s impacts on patient care. One person described the transformations she had seen in how professionals communicate with each other and with patients. Another spoke of the “powerful, quiet shifts that happen when people feel truly seen”.

The need to promote, support and nurture humanised care services has never been more apparent. As we close, we see a context of increasing demand, growing complexity of patients’ needs, a focus on financial targets, ongoing pressure to deliver more with less, and the impact of staff shortages and strikes. Many of these issues are not only felt in health and care but in other sectors too. The continuation of the Point of Care Foundation’s programmes, by Picker and The Schwartz Center, is vitally important for the continuation of the organisation’s mission.

But the future of this work also lies in the community of individuals whose commitment to the mission and values of the Point of Care Foundation has led to real change. This community has grown and diversified over the years, reflecting the different ways in which people have engaged with our work and taken it forward within their organisations.

They include all those that have pushed – often against the tide – for the introduction of Schwartz Rounds in their workplace. They include those who have been prepared to open up their services to scrutiny from patients and families, improving care by co-designing services with the people who receive them. They also include those who invested their time in learning about the theory and practice of patient experience through our Foundations in Patient Experience course, and those whose research has improved our understanding of how work like this impacts staff relationships and patient care.

As the Point of Care Foundation closes, we feel gratitude for the many people who have shaped our work and achieved so much for their colleagues, patients, students and service users. And we feel confident that you will take forward the mission and values we have been working for.

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To find out more about Patient Experience programmes visit the Picker website. 

To find out more about setting up Schwartz Rounds, visit the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare.