The courage to be kind

At the end of 2020, the Carnegie UK Trust published The courage to be kind, a report that reflected on the role of kindness in the healthcare response to COVID-19. Since then, there has been a growing conversation about the importance of kindness – for staff as well as patient wellbeing – and yet at the same time, concern that this might be lost amidst increasing pressure to remobilise and ‘get back to normal’. In this podcast, Carnegie Associate, Dr Elizabeth Kelly, explores the importance of kindness in care settings in Scotland. In conversation with health journalist Pennie Taylor, across six short episodes, they discuss the transformational potential of kindness from a range of angles, bringing in learning from the Trust’s research with medics in Scotland, as well as work by Julia Unwin and others; signpost useful resources; and share ideas and approaches for embedding kindness in the workplace. This podcast was first broadcast on the Scottish Government’s National Wellbeing Hub, and is available on Spotify; but you can also listen to all six episodes directly below.