Ideas for improving cultures of care

If you'd like to see more detail on the amazing projects that wards developed as part of this programme, take a look at the list of ward projects, categorised by theme. 

Ward teams who partipated in Culture of Care: Staff Care and Development: 

• Worked with their coaches for project coaching for teams to implement their change idea, and improve the culture for staff and patients. This was supported via five hours of team coaching over 5 months.
• Held reflective practice sessions facilitated by nominated team members who have attended a 2-day training course, and are being supported through ongoing group supervision
• Supported members of their team to develop their practice in line with the Culture of Care standards, through individual coaching sessions
• Met at two Community of Practice events for the cohort

A huge range of projects were implemented to improve staff care and development.

• Some projects included improving cultural awareness on wards through creating the role of an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Champion, having regular coffee chats across shift patterns on topics such as anti-racism, and linking into resources offered by providers to set up training and Q&As for staff and service users.
• Other projects focused on improving staff communication through updated handover processes, healthcare support worker participation in MDT meetings, and safety huddles.
• Some ward teams also began instituting protected 1:1 time between assigned staff members and service users, to build trusting relationships.

Our Training Workshop

As part of this programme, we delivered training to 558 ward staff. 96% of participants surveyed (274 responses) said they would recommend this training to a colleague. Alongside learning more about the Culture of Care standards, participants explored ways to practice therapeutic, compassionate conversations, and the impact of equity issues on wards, such as unconscious bias and privilege.

Please find a copy of the workshop slides.

A summary of the themes discussed is shown in the graphic synthesis above.

Our Community of Practice

All participating wards joined our events, to hear about each other's progress, and share tips and solutions to common challenges. Summaries of the conversations at a sample of these events are below:

Community of Practice - June 2025

Community of Practice - August 2025

Our Newsletters

Sign up to join our mailing list, to receive programme updates, helpful tools for implementing change programmes and hear stories from other wards participating on the programme. Our previous newsletters are below:

• Psychological safety
• Embedding racial equity
• Implementing quality improvement

Delivering and embedding co-production approaches

• Co-production is...: a framework for understanding the levels of service user involvement
• Culture of Care standards [Easy Read]: a more accessible overview of the 12 Culture of Care standards for people with limited capacity or additional needs

Structuring problem-solving and projects

• Five Whys: a thought exercise to guide thinking towards considering the root causes of an issue
• Plan on a Page: a tool to guide problem solving towards a solution in a structured approach, considering timing, resourcing, and scope
• Pugh matrix: a structure to compare different ideas and issues against several criteria to build a clear view of prioritisation
• Prioritisation matrix: a simple structure to support with prioritising ideas (balancing potential impact with effort required)
• Sustaining your Culture of Care: some tools to help wards maintain project rhythms after formal coaching finishes

Understanding and addressing inequity

• Inequity waste wheel: a tool to help consider and avoid inequitable consequences of proposed change ideas
• Privilege primer: a reflective exercise to help understand and recognise privilege
• Equity learning pathway: a tool to help process improvement efforts through an equity lens

• NHS England's Culture of Care standards
• Briefing paper: Recovering adult acute psychiatric inpatient wards
• Competence framework: Patient and Carer Race Equality Framework (PCREF)
• Framework for conversations: Fostering Psychological Safety