Bournemouth University are working in an area that integrates health related philosophy, qualitative research and practice. This is based on the work of Professors Kathleen Galvin and Professor Les Todres and is summarised in their book: Caring and Well-Being: A lifeworld approach (Todres 2013). This focus has been taken up by other researchers, educators and practitioners both within Bournemouth University as well as nationally and internationally.
Read a brief overview and reviews of Caring and Well-Being: A lifeworld approach (docx 27kb).
Professor Les Todres (Emeritus) discusses the Humanisation of Care in 2012
Why is humanising practice so important?
The research is particularly relevant following the Francis report which considered appalling standards of care at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. The Francis report heralds an overdue ‘wake-up’ call to the realisation that ‘something important is missing’ in current health and social care practices and systems. There are debates about what this ‘something missing’ is, and Galvin and Todres characterise this as ‘humanly sensitive care.’
The Faculty’s undergraduate education programme has been developed with Humanising practice as a key theme.
It is generally acknowledged that we should not only pay attention to extreme situations such as at Mid-Staffordshire. Patients and service-users are telling us in different ways that they too often feel ‘not met as human beings’ within many practice contexts. Within the debate about how to restore humanly sensitive care, different priorities have been considered. The view that we take is that the restoration of humanly sensitive care is not just about ‘more time’ or ‘better leadership’, but more centrally about how the ‘humanising focus’ is clearly articulated and ‘kept alive’ as a primary focus next to other relevant targets.
Such a humanising focus needs two foundational ‘assets’ on which to hang all the usual strategies such as leadership; resources; organisation; training etc:
1) A distinctive and simple ‘vocabulary’ that keeps the focus on ‘humanising’ issues as a central concern.
2) Ways of ensuring that such a focus is coherently championed at all levels: political, organisational, practical and educational.
It is within this context and concern that we believe the ‘Humanising’ Research Programme at Bournemouth University has something distinctive to offer: a coherent ‘humanising’ framework that can be easily translated into everyday vocabularies and practices.
Beginning in health-related philosophy, and supported by a ‘fusion’ of qualitative research, and practice development projects with many practice partners, we have engaged in the kind of translational research that has both theoretical depth and is practically transferrable.
Humanising Publications
The Distinctiveness of the Programme and its Aims
The first aim of the programme is to derive insights in response to the question: What makes people feel ‘more human’ or ‘less human’ when engaged with systems and interactions? While acknowledging that such an ‘experience-near’ question is complex and unusually formulated in relation to traditional academic discourse and jargon, we have found that everyday people intuitively understand what we mean when asking them this question. Also, the question does in fact have a rich philosophical heritage.
The second aim of the programme is to apply these insights in practice, education, as well as wider workplace settings. This second aim has potential to generate multiple applications.
The outcomes of the theoretical and philosophical phases of the research have resulted in the articulation of eight bipolar dimensions (Todres et al. 2009) that describe what constitutes health and social care processes and interactions that are ‘humanising’ or ‘dehumanising’ as summarised in the diagram below.
Conceptual Framework of the Dimensions of Humanisation
| Forms of Humanisation | Forms of Dehumanisation |
|---|---|
| Insiderness | Objectification |
| Agency | Passivity |
| Uniqueness | Homogenisation |
| Togetherness | Isolation |
| Sense-making | Loss of meaning |
| Personal journey | Loss of personal journey |
| sense of place | Dislocation |
| Embodiment | Reductionist body |
