When looking after residents, all care professionals should ensure that they follow best practices at work. This includes supporting high-quality care and treatment, as well as ensuring that all professionals are working towards the same goal. They try their best to provide compassionate care, deliverable outcomes, and a good quality of life to individuals.
The NHS established care and compassion in practice as a strategy for developing and maintaining a high standard of care. It represents the six Cs concept, which supports the overall plan and quality of care professionals should deliver.
Why are the 6 Cs so important in caring?
The 6Cs were created to establish a good standard of care that must be reflected in the practices of all care organizations; they also should provide support and high-quality care. It provides a set of shared principles that ensure that all individuals get the same level of care across all health and social care workers, staff, and organizations.
The 6Cs encourage high-quality, person-centered care for all individuals and their families. They are equally important for compassionate care to be provided. Here’s how they are defined:
Care
Care is a core of any care organization that benefits the individual while also improving the health of the community as a whole. However, people who receive care should expect it to be pertinent for them in their lives.
This includes focusing on high-quality care in all tasks at care homes. It entails providing care to the individuals and encouraging their life and well-being.
However, care in practice might include:
- Listening to a person’s needs.
- Respecting their views.
- Treating them with dignity.
- Acting in their best interests.
Compassion
Compassion includes providing care with empathy, respect, and dignity. It also helps carers recognize residents’ feelings and build empathy-based relationships with them. It is also known as ‘intelligent care,’ which involves recognizing emotions and responding with kindness, and it is a key component of how people see their caregivers.
For instance, it’s critical to see the person you care for and recognize them as a human being with feelings, not just a resident. Compassion is treating someone with kindness, cooperating with their situation, and providing emotional and medical care.
Competence
Competence ensures that everyone in a caring position must be smart enough to understand each person’s health and social needs. It also involves possessing the experience, clinical understanding, and practical knowledge to provide effective care and treatments.
A person who needs 24-hour assistance and support has a wide range of treatment care plans and requirements. Furthermore, because each resident’s need is unique, their preferences and caregiving process might vary from each other.
Communication
Any caring relationship and effective team requires good communication with residents. However, compassion in practice and communicating effectively are key techniques to ensure that this is always the case.
Listening is equally as significant as what we say and do when communicating. It is all about making sure you explain to the individual what you are doing and keeping them updated on their care.
It’s also about making sure you constantly listen to the resident’s requests and, where possible, act on them. In this way, residents are more likely to regard their carers as friends or companions, feel committed to them, and trust their advice.
Courage
Courage means being willing to ensure that everyone receives the highest quality care that each resident deserves at a care home. It requires prioritizing the resident’s needs and having the courage to speak up when anything is wrong. Doing the right thing, speaking out when there are issues, and having the guts and vision to create innovative ways are all characteristics of courage.
It also requires having the courage to talk if you want to see a change in how things are done. If you believe that changing one of your organization’s working procedures, such as changing meal timing hours, would improve resident care, you should be confident to speak up and recommend it.
Commitment
The last C is a commitment to the residents and the community as that is your priority at work. Your focus should be on your residents and their care. Being devoted to them helps increase the quality of their care and their trust.
Being committed to the job position is also a form of commitment. However, professional growth and a willingness to follow new trends and practices can help you deliver the best possible care services. It can also help to adopt recent changes and to demonstrate your devotion to the field.
How can you provide residents with complete person-centered care by following the 6 Cs?
In the healthcare industry, providing safe and high-quality care demands the use of person-centered care. It assists in identifying and understanding the resident’s priorities and builds trust, mutual respect, and partnering to create better decisions and care plans.
However, following the 6 Cs in care fields helps get to know your residents personally and actively involve them in care decisions. Because no one enjoys having their choices made for them without their involvement or opinion. It makes them feel like a work or a responsibility rather than a person.
In recent years, several care management systems such as CareVision have evolved, many of which rely on remote monitoring of each resident. They are helpful for dealing with healthcare concerns that require a more long-term, hands-on approach rather than a one-and-done solution.
These digital platforms also ensure that everyone on your team is informed about each patient’s status. As a result, your caregivers will be able to spend less time on administrative responsibilities and more time looking after residents.
Bottom line
These 6Cs are a set of key values that all health and care workers should implement to ensure that everyone is working toward the same collective effort. Moreover, following the 6Cs ensures high-quality care for residents and should be the foundation of all health and care programs.