A compassionate approach

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Aim

Objective

This article meets GDC development outcomes A, C and D.

Background

Compassionate leadership is a developing, contemporary strategy for person-centred and inclusive care (de Zulueta, 2021), suggested to aid emotional labour management in healthcare practitioners (West, 2021), including dental professionals. Whilst similar to other practices such as transformational or distributed leadership, a key difference of compassionate leadership is its deeply humanistic reverence, care, and recognition of the suffering of others (Klimecki et al., 2014). It is the antithesis of the uncaring, catastrophised healthcare environment exposed within national scandals such as seen within Mid- Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust (Francis, 2013), recognising the harm of negligent behaviours and disinterest in social and emotional requirements of service users (Gilbert, 2018). This approach resonates with dental professionals as evidenced by the General Dental Council (2013) Standards of working effectively with colleagues, appropriate communication, referral and delegation as well as demonstration of effective leadership skills. Compassionate approaches also support dental professionals in achieving the Care Quality Commission (2022) Key Lines of Enquiry, concerning the requirements of dental services and practices being well led.