'We need to know that we matter'

Dr Hannah Andrews wrote her PhD thesis on self-care and self-compassion in nursing. She says there must be a change in the profession’s culture so staff give themselves permission to prioritise their own health

How many times have you heard flight attendants say: “Put your own oxygen mask on first before assisting others?” It makes complete sense. So why do nursing staff find it difficult to care for themselves before and alongside caring for others?

Understanding that we should direct care and compassion towards ourselves is a challenging idea. We only appear to consider and use self-care as a reactive way of coping. It’s not built into our work lives. Patients are always our priority, and while many of us enter the profession to care for others, our needs shouldn’t be sacrificed while we offer compassionate care.

Our nursing identity is important here. It’s more difficult to access self-care when we find it difficult to have a sense of ourselves outside nursing.

We’re also more likely to be able to look after ourselves if we’re working in a stable or safe environment, or we feel safe within our work team. Sadly, there are many reasons why a lot of us might feel this is difficult in today’s challenging and ever-changing health care environments.

So what can we do?

We need to give ourselves permission to proactively care for ourselves, or receive permission from someone else, such as our managers. If we do this, we’re more likely to experience a greater sense of wellbeing and to feel more equipped to manage the difficult emotions that come with our jobs.

This way of thinking needs to be embedded within nursing culture too, with permission to self-care and be self-compassionate being promoted early on in our careers.

Our needs don’t need to be sacrificed for us to care for others

Newly registered nurses are seriously at risk of early career burnout at a time when we need them most. Therefore a module on self-care in the nursing curriculum and early key messages could help, so learning to look after themselves and being given permission to do so becomes part of their formal education.

The NMC Code places a focus on caring for patients and being well enough to care for patients, but going forward we need policies and procedures in place that state self-care is not only acceptable but essential in a health care environment. Self-care needs to be a formal part of a nurses’ duty of care. And this should apply to the whole clinical team.

We need to know that we matter. Our needs don’t need to be sacrificed for us to care for others.

Hannah has contributed to our self-care project and the RCN’s Healthy Workplace, Healthy You campaign. Read more about Hannah’s research.