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For UK healthcare professions, the past decade is bookended by two events. First, a private citizen’s Freedom of Information request in 2012 led to the publication of an internal review by the General Medical Council (GMC) which revealed that, during the 2005–2013 period, 28 doctors had committed suicide whilst undergoing the GMC’s fitness‐to‐practice (FTP) investigations (Horsfall, 2014). Casey and Choong argued that these deaths were preventable and the GMC has a duty of care towards doctors under investigation (Casey and Choong, 2016) (Box 1.1).

Practitioner suicide and distress is not unique to the UK, nor is it confined to doctors (Hofmann, 2018). Nonetheless, these healthcare professionals likely entered training with the same aspirations and hopes as their peers. In their deaths, they left behind people who loved and needed them. A healthcare culture which seemingly leaves people viewing suicide as their only alternative should concern us all – as John Dunne said, ‘Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind’.

Second, the initial phase in the UK of the Covid‐19 pandemic was characterised by shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE), with the result that staff felt they were being required either to place themselves at risk without adequate protection, or to decline to care for patients and risk disciplinary action. This impression of a lack of concern for healthcare staff reached its apotheosis when a prominent UK politician suggested that shortages of PPE were occurring due to wasteful usage by healthcare staff (see Chapter 6). Subsequently, reports emerged of higher‐risk staff feeling unable to request the PPE to which they were entitled.

Figure 1.1 Change in reason for leaving given by staff (for voluntary resignations), 2011–2012 to 2018–2019 (Index at 2011/2012 = 100).

Source: The Health Foundation (2019). © 2019, The Health Foundation.

On a more mundane level, healthcare staff report day‐to‐day shortages in their work in terms of access to food, rest breaks and adequate on‐call facilities, such that these provisions are not in step with employment law (GMC, 2019). Even a cursory look at Maslow’s triangle (Chapter 3) suggests that meeting a practitioner’s basic psychological and physical needs is required to safeguard and provide support for the high‐level problem‐solving necessary in clinical decision‐making; it is unlikely that depriving people of food, drink and adequate rest improves patient safety. When we consider clinical resilience, it is important that we do not impose on practitioners yet another burden of fearing failure. Rather, it is about enabling clinicians to optimise their cognitive performance, be the best they can be and recover the joy of practice. In this, organisations have a particular responsibility (Chapter 8). With resilience, our recurring theme is kindness. Kind health systems and organisations will more greatly facilitate the potential of their teams and the safety of patients.