Our history and origins
The Point of Care Foundation grew out of the Point of Care programme at The King’s Fund from 2007, becoming an independent charity in 2013.
Research programme
The Point of Care programme reviewed the evidence and developed approaches to improving care quality through patient-centred care. It developed two methodologies, in Experience-based Co-design (EBCD) and Patient and Family-Centred Care (PFCC), which remain at the heart of the Foundation’s work to build skills and capacity for patient-centred quality improvement.
The programme also made the crucial link between high quality patient-centred care and the wellbeing of those delivering that care. Through its research, it reviewed an intervention developed by the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Care, in Boston, Massachusetts. Schwartz Center Rounds were a forum for healthcare workers to come together and share stories about their experiences of delivering care. The Point of Care team recognised their potential for supporting health workers here, and agreed a license to introduce Rounds in the UK and Ireland.
Independent charity
Since launching as independent charity, the Point of Care Foundation, in 2013, we have delivered training and consultancy for a range of health and care organisations including hospital trusts, hospices and GP surgeries, whilst extending our work on Schwartz Rounds to workers in other sectors including vets, the prison service and children’s social care.
The organisation grew quickly following the publication of the Francis Report, which detailed the shocking failings in patient care at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust between 2005-09. Sir Robert Francis served as a trustee of the Foundation from 2013–2021.
For several years we managed a network for Heads of Patient Experience working in the NHS, and have developed our own accredited professional qualification, the Foundations in Patient Experience course. We take a particular interest in driving system-level change and work increasingly with larger entities such as Integrated Care Systems, alongside advocacy work to promote patient-centred care. We continue to take an evidence-based approach to all our work, commissioning and conducting our own research, and maintaining a library of publications on our website to support enquiries about patient-centred care and staff wellbeing.
Pandemic response
During the Covid-19 pandemic we focused on supporting health workers through the increased pressures and particular challenges presented by that crisis. This included the development of ‘Team Time’, an online, shorter form of reflective practice for smaller groups of colleagues.
Jocelyn Cornwell
Jocelyn is the founder of The Point of Care Foundation and was its Chief Executive from its inception at the King’s Fund in 2007 until 2020. Jocelyn still works with the Foundation as an Associate.
Jocelyn originally trained as a medical sociologist and ethnographer and is the author of “Hard-Earned Lives: accounts of health and illness from East London” (1984).
She has worked in academic research, as a senior manager in NHS community health services and in health regulation, first at the Audit Commission and then at the Commission for Health Improvement (CHI) where she was responsible for the design of clinical governance review methods.
Jocelyn is a trustee of the Nuffield Trust.
Reflections on 15 years of the Point of Care
In January 2021 we published an article by Jocelyn in which she reflected on the development of the Foundation. She wrote:
“Having stepped down as Chief Executive of the Point of Care Foundation last year, I want to reflect on the journey the organisation and I have made and what I have learnt. This is a personal record, my take on our history, the principles behind the work and achievements plus some reflections on changes that have and have not happened over the last fifteen years.” Read more…