Ali Carruth
Director of Participation, Experience and Patient Engagement

How Schwartz rounds help us reflect and learn

I’d experienced Schwartz Rounds in two previous trusts I had worked in and got huge personal benefit from them, not just as a story teller, but also as a participant. Schwartz Rounds are like nothing else I had experienced before and like nothing else in the arena of staff wellbeing or support that is on offer. When I first started in KCHFT I wanted to introduce them but was met with some resistance along the lines of: “we’ve tried that before.”, however it was when I returned from maternity leave I had renewed energy to drive these forward in the Trust.

We secured funding and trained our Schwartz Facilitators, We had set up our steering group, booked our venues in East Kent and West Kent and we were ready to go with our first Schwartz Round. But then… COVID arrived! This put a halt to mass gatherings so we had to re-think and planned to run them virtually via MS Teams.

Our first round was in June 2020 and we had more than 50 people attend. I really wasn’t sure how running something so personal would work, but almost a year in and over 12 rounds later (we ran two on some months), I think they’ve been a huge success. We have even had external guests attend our rounds to look to us in terms of being ‘experts’ in running rounds virtually!

We have consistently had about 50-60 people attend each month with three or four story tellers at each round. We have also trained up more facilitators and are expanding out to run bespoke rounds for services that request them.. One of the things I love about Schwartz Rounds is that they are for non-clinical and clinical staff. They break down any hierarchical boundaries too. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, for example:

“The Schwartz Round is very emotive, a lot of our staff who perhaps may think they are the only ones dealing with situations know that it can happen to anyone and everyone. It is good to talk but if you don't want to engage with the panellists there is no pressure”

“I thought the panellists were excellent and I found their courage in speaking about their experiences really emotional”

“I found it really relatable and moving. The session made me really think about "the power of apology" and how this can help people to gain closure in situations. It also helped me to reflect on my own experiences having worked both clinically and as admin within the trust. My reasons behind not working clinically anymore were spoken about at length during the Schwartz Round, it was really inspiring to see so many people talk about not feeling they could continue in their clinical practice but doing so. Everyone showed great strength and their resilience really inspired me”.

Even when COVID prevents us from meeting up in large groups, I really think we will continue to hold the rounds by MS Teams. Doing it this way has enabled staff from all over the Trust to attend without worrying about travel time in their already busy day.

Ali