Hospice/Palliative Care people have a reputation for being nice to patients and patients’ families. We try and treat people with respect and kindness. We try to be compassionate in our dealings with people who are extremely unwell, people who are dying and their loved ones. When time is short we want to deal with people in a calm fashion. We try to take as much stress out of their lives as possible. We work on the individual’s quality of life which is defined by them. We try our best to relieve what they think of as suffering. I’ve been working in Palliative Care for almost 16 years and I’ve often wondered why Hospice/Palliative Care teams are not always so nice to their own team members.

We don’t always treat our own team members well. Is it because we have used up all our kindness in dealing with our patients and their families? By the end of the day has the milk of human kindness been out for too long? Does it return back to base soured? Our faces may not be so cheerful. Our patience levels running on empty as we have worked on patients for hours. Why so glum chum? Have we shone our lights of external kindness so brightly that when we return back to base, the shadows we cast are that much darker?

We might not always like our patients, but we have a duty to treat them with respect. I can’t get angry with my patients so I look for other people to take it out on. Does this lead to us saving up our bad behaviour for our own people? External facing angelic beings, but the wings become whinges when we look inwards at our own people? It doesn’t have to be this way. What can we do to change Hospice/Palliative Care? Do we need to do a complete re-haul? Start all over again and involve patients and their families as co-designers. Can we encourage our team members to behave better towards each other? Can we create a more understanding, respectful and resilient workplace culture?