Looking to the future

Today we shared the news that the Point of Care Foundation would close at the end of this year, with its work continuing to support staff working in health and social care through the transfer to the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Care. In this blog, I take a moment to reflect on the many achievements of the organisation, our hope for the future of Schwartz Rounds and the mixed emotions I, and I’m sure others, are feeling.

First and foremost is a deep sadness that the organisation is closing. Since its founding by Jocelyn Cornwell in 2013, the Point of Care Foundation has always been a small organisation, but one that has punched well above its weight. We are proud of the role it has played in supporting hundreds of organisations, and thousands of people, with the mission of humanising the care of patients and citizens.

There is also huge gratitude for the people that have worked with and for the Foundation through its life. We are grateful for the energy and time our staff and the wide network of associates and Schwartz mentors have given to make the organisation the success it has been. It has been a cherished part of many careers. An important part of its legacy and longer term impact will be the people who carry with them the drive to continue to make care more human.

Our gratitude also extends to the many organisations and individuals we have worked with, through both our patient experience work and in the Schwartz Community, that have had the courage to take on work that has often been counter-cultural.

Our Experiences of Care programme worked with healthcare teams to better understand how their services were actually experienced by their patients. It is not easy, within the pressures of delivering healthcare services, and against the undercurrents of existing blame cultures, to open up to the potential for critique, perhaps to discover that your well intentioned actions could be creating poor experiences for those you seek to care for. But countless teams have been prepared to trust us to help them do so, in the name of making their services better.

The hundreds of organisations that have adopted Schwartz Rounds have done something similar. In healthcare, where the focus at a senior level is once again on financial sustainability, meeting national targets and reducing waiting lists, organisations are still choosing to do something different: to invest time into creating a safe space, not for technical discussions about patient care, but for colleagues to come together, connect, and reflect on the social and psychological impact of their work. In sharing the realities and difficult emotional aspects that individuals face when caring for others in a system under pressure, staff are able to feel a greater sense of connection with colleagues, develop greater empathy and feel better supported. In doing so, the Rounds have been proven to help individuals who attend regularly to experience less psychological distress.

A small organisation with a big impact

And so the final emotion I would like to share is excitement for the future of Schwartz Rounds in the UK and Ireland, and their continued growth and development in health and care organisations, HEIs and the many other settings we have long worked to establish them within. While the Foundation is shutting its doors, this is also a new beginning for Schwartz sites throughout the UK and Ireland.

The Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare, our partners throughout the life of the Foundation, will be taking over from us the provision of licensing, training and support for Schwartz Rounds in the UK and Ireland. Having first developed the concept of Schwartz Rounds in the 1990s, they bring great experience, an international perspective and opportunities for learning from a community of Schwartz organisations spanning continents. Crucially, they have the scale and organisational resilience to ensure that Schwartz Rounds can be supported on a sustainable basis in the long term.

Difficult as the decision to close has been, it is important to see this not only as an ending, but also as the start of a new chapter for the vital work that the Point of Care Foundation has begun. And long may its legacy continue through all of us who have been influenced by its work to date.