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The 6Cs are applicable to every healthcare worker, from front line nurse to chief executive officer. The concept of these six fundamental values of nursing have been further embraced at our trust following the Francis report into care failures at Mid Staffordshire .
The head of nursing, matrons and managers of our dialysis units wanted the 6Cs to feature in every aspect of care, ensuring that renal services give service users what they want.
They also wanted to provide staff with the confidence to challenge management policy and decisions, and feel able to ask colleagues to account for their practice.
The 6Cs concept was explained and rolled out using emails, presentations and group work across King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust's haemodialysis units at Dartford, Bromley, Woolwich, Sydenham, Dulwich and in the acute dialysis, main dialysis and renal wards, until every member of the renal care group understood what the six components involved.
This process took two months and met little resistance from clinical staff, who recognised that this was the type of care they wished to deliver. Through the group work, everyone contributed ideas for improving care. This bottom-up approach may explain the success of the initiative: it placed the matron and managers in facilitator roles - they did not impose...