Empathy can be taught, maternity trainer insists

Prof Jeremy Howick is leading the training and insists empathy can be taught

Dozens of maternity staff in Leicester are being given empathy training, with the lead trainer insisting that the trait can be taught.

Affected families have been pressing for a public inquiry to examine failings in the city's maternity services, which are currently rated as requires improvement.

University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust has set up the voluntary training to teach staff more about empathy to each other and patients, in a bid to improve the culture of the service and safety.

"If lack of empathy were a drug, it would have been pulled from the market long ago," trainer Prof Jeremy Howick said.

Prof Howick, director of the University of Leicester's Stoneygate Centre for Empathic Healthcare, is delivering the programme.

He said: "We are all aware of the challenges in maternity services.

"Empathy, in general, is the ability to feel what someone else is feeling literally.

"In healthcare though, it is a bit different. It involves understanding a patient, demonstrating understanding, and then helpful action and the helpful action is key.

"Active listening is vital to understanding."

Prof Howick added enhancing empathy improved patient outcomes.

Preeti and Hrushi Joshi say it is good that the empathy training is being offered - but stress problems in maternity services go much wider

One grieving family have cautiously welcomed the discussion around the training.

The parents of baby Ansh, who died from brain damage two days after being born at the Leicester Royal Infirmary in April 2022, believe their child may still be alive had staff listened more to the concerns of the mother.

Preeti Joshi, 35, Ansh's mother, says there was delayed decision-making during her homebirth experience and by the time she was taken to hospital, she felt invisible.

"At the hospital I felt hardly listened to. It was like I might as well have been a dead body just lying there," she said.

Mrs Joshi, who is a pharmacist, says if you are a healthcare professional without empathy, "you are in the wrong field".

She said: "You can maybe teach someone the right words to say, but the feeling of empathy I think comes from within. It is good though they are talking about it."

Her husband Hrushi, also a pharmacist, added the training was "a step in the right direction", but stressed the problems in maternity services go much wider and backed calls for a public inquiry.

More than 180 staff members will have completed the empathy training when it finishes in December

Leicester's maternity units are currently rated as "requires improvement" by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

An improvement programme is ongoing, but a growing number of families pushing for a public inquiry say a failure to listen to mothers is one of the reoccurring themes that they insist needs addressing.

The empathy training, which lasts for a day, is taking place amid the backdrop of maternity scandals in hospitals at Morecambe Bay, Shrewsbury and Telford, East Kent and Nottingham.

The ongoing review of Nottingham's maternity services is the largest in NHS history, and is being led by senior midwife Donna Ockenden.

Donna Ockenden says she will watch the Leicester initiative about empathy with interest

"All of us can benefit from improving our communication skills," she said. "I guess at the heart of it though, is so much of the way we behave towards others is something you have either got, or you haven't.

"Having said that, I would support anything that improves communication skills between midwives, the wider perinatal team and families."

Prof Howick insisted empathy could be taught.

"We have trials that show when you train someone to be empathic, their behaviour changes. Of course if someone is terrible, they are not going to get exceptionally empathic, but better," he said.

Director of midwifery and deputy chief nurse at the Leicester trust, Danni Burnett, says empathy is about "really understanding what matters to families"

Director of midwifery and deputy chief nurse at the Leicester trust, Danni Burnett, said there was a need to improve patient safety - and empathy training is one part of that.

"It is about how we communicate, how we involve, how we are partners in care," she said.

"It goes beyond the tasks. We can become very task-orientated and on a conveyer belt."

Leicester midwife Bethany Trantom said empathy was a "choice you have to make in each interaction".

"It can be difficult - especially when you are overrun and stressed and you've got multiple women you are caring for," she said.

"It is about treating women's concerns as genuine and not undermining them or belittling them."

The training's success will be measured by surveying participants, and through patient satisfaction data.

Prof Howick said nine out of 10 staff members who took part believed the process would lead to positive results and, based on a systematic review, predicted that patient satisfaction will go up by at least 10%.