Professional wellbeing and caring: exploring a complex relationship.

There is growing concern about lack of compassion in nursing. Impact of Injuries, which is the parent study (Kendrick et al, 2011) of this independent nested study, collected patient accounts of care received by physiotherapists and nurses. While physiotherapists were generally described as caring, nursing care was less consistent and sometimes uncaring. This embedded study conducted semi-structured interviews in 2012 with 11 physiotherapists and 12 nurses in four English hospitals to obtain perspectives on the provision of care. Physiotherapists presented a distinct identity with caring both integral to the role and sustained by structural and organisational factors. Nurses had a diffuse identity with limited control within a medical and business model of care. They appeared 'under siege' and were nostalgic for caring, which was frequently subordinate to other demands. Both nurses and physiotherapists faced challenges but nurses felt the context of their work was not conducive to caring. This article draws comparisons between these professions and makes informed recommendations to improve nursing practice and patient care.