In this episode of Doctor Informed, Clara Munro is joined by Ayisha Ashmore - and they're getting to grips with being a compassionate colleague.

While the topic might seem warm and fuzzy, there's some good hard science to suggest that compassionate leadership at every level of healthcare can make a huge difference to staff, and improve patient outcomes.

Most people innately have the skills need to be compassionate colleagues - but often the pressures of the job can make it the lowest of priorities in our everyday interactions.

Our two guests this week think that's wrong though - and say that compassionate leadership is one of the most important things to get right.

Joining us are, Michael West, senior fellow at The King's Fund and professor of Work and Organisational Psychology at Lancaster, and Bob Klaber, consultant general paediatrician and director of strategy, research and innovation at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust

Michael has written the book on compassionate leadership in health and social care - https://tinyurl.com/vh55mker.

You can read more about Bob's work in his blog - https://www.imperial.nhs.uk/about-us/blog/how-acts-of-kindness-can-improve-care-and-strengthen-teams

Ayisha has written about putting some of this all into practice in a maternity setting - https://bmjleader.bmj.com/content/early/2021/11/25/leader-2021-000449