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Our values
Contents
Our HEE values and behaviours are unique to HEE and have been co-created by colleagues across the organisation. They sit underneath the wider banner of the NHS Constitutional values, something which everyone who works for the NHS, including our trainees and learners is expected to uphold.
On this page you can learn more about HEE’s values as well as the values of the NHS Constitution.
HEE values and behaviours
The golden thread that connects all of our values is the need for a people-centred approach. Having developed these values together, we are ensuring we are putting people first and being the best possible version of ourselves. Here you can see each of our four values and the behaviours that support them.
Responsible
- We will be proud of doing things right, taking personal and collective responsibility for our actions
- We will act as role models and challenge poor behaviour
- We will communicate clearly and openly, helping each other to contribute to our work.
Fair
- We will prioritise fairness, consistency, and equality
- We will respect and value everyone as a person - regardless of role, function or grade
- We will think and speak well of each other, recognising talent and commitment, not hierarchies
Confident
- We will celebrate, recognise and thank each other for our performance and contribution
- We will promote creativity and respond positively to feedback to help us do better
- We will support each other to fix things and learn lessons when we make mistakes or things don’t turn out as planned.
Inclusive
- We will celebrate and respect our diversity and differences to ensure everyone is included
- We will be warm and approachable and treat each other kindly
- We will be considerate, including respecting boundaries between work and home lives.
We ask that everyone at HEE takes individual responsibility for upholding our HEE values; helping to embed them in everything we do.
NHS values
Patients, public and staff have helped develop this expression of values that inspire passion in the NHS and that should underpin everything it does. Individual organisations will develop and build upon these values, tailoring them to their local needs. The NHS values provide common ground for co-operation to achieve shared aspirations, at all levels of the NHS.
Patients come first in everything we do. We fully involve patients, staff, families, carers, communities, and professionals inside and outside the NHS. We put the needs of patients and communities before organisational boundaries. We speak up when things go wrong.
We ensure that compassion is central to the care we provide and respond with humanity and kindness to each person’s pain, distress, anxiety or need. We search for the things we can do, however small, to give comfort and relieve suffering. We find time for patients, their families and carers, as well as those we work alongside. We do not wait to be asked, because we care.
We value every person - whether patient, their families or carers, or staff - as an individual, respect their aspirations and commitments in life, and seek to understand their priorities, needs, abilities and limits. We take what others have to say seriously. We are honest and open about our point of view and what we can and cannot do.
We strive to improve health and wellbeing and people’s experiences of the NHS. We cherish excellence and professionalism wherever we find it – in the everyday things that make people’s lives better as much as in clinical practice, service improvements and innovation. We recognise that all have a part to play in making ourselves, patients and our communities healthier.
We earn the trust placed in us by insisting on quality and striving to get the basics of quality of care - safety, effectiveness and patient experience - right every time. We encourage and welcome feedback from patients, families, carers, staff and the public. We use this to improve the care we provide and build on our successes.
We maximise our resources for the benefit of the whole community, and make sure nobody is excluded, discriminated against or left behind. We accept that some people need more help, that difficult decisions have to be taken - and that when we waste resources we waste opportunities for others.
HEE launches How to be a Trans ally guide
In support of Transgender Awareness Week (13-19 November), HEE’s Diversity, Inclusion and Participation team has launched guidance on How to be a Trans ally.
The guide offers suggestions and advice on areas that individuals may consider in supporting their trans colleagues. It is an internal resource for HEE colleagues, not the wider NHS and is being shared for any others who may wish to use it.