The first article in our six-part series drawing on research funded by the National Institute for Health Research and included in NIHR Dissemination Centre publications

The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Dissemination Centre provides good research evidence for decision-making in health and social care. Our review of research into hospital care of older people living with frailty, published recently, identifies the importance of good relationships for clinical outcomes as well as for patient satisfaction.

The review also describes the challenges of doing this in busy hospital settings. You can read more about the research findings on this and other aspects of managing frailty by downloading the report, Comprehensive Care.

‘Caring’ is often perceived to be less skilled than task-based work that is based on personal attributes, hence the focus on values-based recruitment.

Caring involves developing meaningful relationships that lead to dignity, empathy and emotional support, although Benner and Wrubel (1989) assert that caring for strangers is significantly different from caring for friends and family members.

Caring for families takes place in the context of long-term relationships, but caring for strangers requires staff to develop therapeutic relationships quickly and in atypical circumstances.

Despite this requirement, few resources are devoted to teaching the necessary skills, particularly to healthcare assistants (HCAs), who provide much of the direct care for older people in hospital.

One of the studies featured in Comprehensive Care looked at the feasibility of developing a relational care training programme for HCAs (Arthur et al 2017).

In this article, lead researcher Tony Arthur describes the study and a chief nurse, Cheryl Lenney, discusses the implications for nurse managers.