Introduction As a profession, pharmacy comprises of multiple workplace settings but also of a wide range of individuals, all with varying levels of personal, professional, and educational experience. The nature of the roles within pharmacy also requires individuals to work autonomously and within often diverse and multi-disciplinary teams, and so it is important for pharmacy staff to understand the principles and behaviours of compassionate leadership in their day-to-day work.

Dependent on their role, staff may find themselves in patient-facing settings or scenarios and could be responsible and required to display the compassionate leadership principles (attending, understanding, empathising, and helping), and education is vital to support this. Compassionate leaders learn from the lived experience of others, engaging in topics relating to equality, diversity, and inclusion to help inform their practice, creating an environment of no intimidation or victimisation, and where respecting, supporting, listening, and belonging becomes routine.

Aims and objectives of the research project or activity It is hoped that providing education and examples of compassionate leadership will enable all staff to be more aware of their ability to display such principles, leading to a more inclusive, understanding, and enabled pharmacy workforce. Compassionate leadership principles extend much beyond the remit of the pharmacy workforce, and displaying these principles in practice may potentially influence those outside of the profession to reflect on their practice too. By creating a more compassionate workforce, we could be making small steps to ensuring a more sustainable, productive, and positive health and social care environment to be a part of. Given the ongoing impact of burnout on health and social care workers, it is important to address how principles of compassionate leadership can support those who are struggling, and may reduce the risk of colleagues leaving roles within such sectors.

Method or approach In order to fulfil assessment criteria for a module titled ‘Compassionate Leadership in Practice’ as part of the MSc in Professional Practice in Health with Wrexham University, students were asked to produce a resource to introduce a new member of staff to the culture of compassionate leadership that is core to practice in their area of work. Students were also asked to provide a short rationale for the format used and how it will be utilised within their chosen area. As described above, the various roles within pharmacy also requires individuals to work autonomously and within often diverse and multi-disciplinary teams, and so it is important for pharmacy staff to understand and display the principles of compassionate leadership in their day-to-day work.

GJ chose to create an audio-visual resource to be used as a potential eLearning resource. This was created on Canva with a professional audio, ensuring a high-quality and engaging piece of work to begin embedding the principles of compassionate leadership within pharmacy teams. GJ also suggested that this could be implemented as a mandatory resource to be completed by all staff. The resource should also be available in Welsh, along with descriptive text for staff living with any hearing or visual impairments. This resource will be available and accessible to all members of the pharmacy workforce, regardless of any disabilities that they are living with, demonstrating our commitment to increase inclusion and diversity within the workplace.

Findings The resource has not been assessed yet; however, it has received great acclaim and feedback from colleagues.

GJ is currently engaging with JC, ML and VG to understand how best to assess the potential impact of this work, and findings will be available in time for March 2024.

Key messages Providing education and examples of compassionate leadership will enable all staff to be more aware of their personal ability to display such principles, leading to a more inclusive, understanding, and enabled pharmacy workforce. Compassionate leadership principles extend much beyond the remit of the pharmacy, and by embodying and leading such principles in practice may potentially influence others to reflect on their practice too.

The benefits of developing a more compassionate workforce are wide-ranging; from improving employee engagement and retention and boosting productivity, to lowering heart rate, blood pressure and strengthening the immune system. By creating a more compassionate workforce, we could be making small steps to ensuring a more sustainable, productive, and positive health and social care environments to work within.