Enhancing system empathy within a UK Emergency Department: A feasibility interprofessional priority setting exercise

Abstract

Background System-level barriers inhibit empathy in healthcare, and this can harm patients and practitioners. The barriers include burnout-inducing administrative workloads, burdensome protocols, lack of wellbeing spaces, un-empathic leadership, and not emphasising empathy as an institutional value. A workshop aimed at enhancing empathic systems was successfully delivered in Canada but has not been tested in the UK National Health Service (NHS) setting.