Hospitals who prioritise empathy are safer, healthier and cheaper to run, landmark study finds
Professor Jeremy Howick
NHS hospital trusts with higher levels of “system empathy” have 76% higher odds of being rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ for patient safety by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), finds a new study by the University of Leicester.
Researchers from the Stoneygate Centre for Empathic Healthcare developed and validated the first composite index of system-level empathy across NHS trusts in England. They analysed national data across nine organisational dimensions, including compassionate culture, leadership quality, teamwork, staffing levels, and staff wellbeing.
A modest improvement in a trust’s empathy score was also associated with:
• 46% higher odds of achieving a ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ effectiveness rating
• Significantly lower staff burnout and absenteeism, with measurable improvements in self-reported health and wellbeing
• Reduced agency spend: trusts with lower empathy scores spent £5.4 million more on temporary staff and £760,000 more on external consultancy per year than higher-scoring trusts
Professor Jeremy Howick, Director of the Stoneygate Centre for Empathic Healthcare, said: "This is the first time we have been able to put a number on empathy at the system level and show clearly that it makes a difference to patient safety, staff wellbeing, and the bottom line. Empathy is a strategic imperative.”
Dr Amber Bennett-Weston
The average trust score was 5.99 out of 10, with meaningful variation across the system (range: 4.88–6.78). Previous major NHS inquiries — including the Francis Report into Mid Staffordshire and the Ockenden Review into Shrewsbury and Telford maternity services — repeatedly identified a lack of empathy as a factor in preventable deaths. Until now, empathy had been studied almost exclusively at the level of individual clinician–patient interactions; this study examines it across entire organisations.
Dr Amber Bennett-Weston from the Stoneygate Centre for Empathic Healthcare said: "Investments in compassionate leadership, staff wellbeing, sustainable staffing, and inclusive culture are not simply ‘nice to have’ — they are associated with measurable improvements in patient safety and organisational efficiency.”The authors are calling on healthcare organisations and policymakers to treat system empathy as a strategic priority and are working to validate the System Empathy Index in independent datasets and establish causal relationships through longitudinal studies.