Bimpe Kuti-Matekenya

The Patient as Coach Team (PaCT) initiative represents a transformative step forward in nurse education. Led by service users and carers, PaCT reimagines how student nurses learn about, connect with, and practise personcentred, compassionate care. By placing lived experience at the heart of its design, the initiative offers a powerful model of learning that supports the development of emotional intelligence, ethical awareness, and the values that underpin professional nursing practice. In an era where healthcare systems are under increasing pressure to maintain dignity, empathy, and humanity in care delivery, PaCT stands out as a pioneering and innovative educational response. It is firmly rooted in the 6Cs of Nursing— 1. Compassion and Empathy 2. Dignity and Confidentiality 3. Trust and Honesty 4. Collaboration and Communication 5. Courage and Commitment 6. Competence and Expressing Emotion It offers students an opportunity to engage in coproduced education shaped by people with direct experience of care. Rather than being passive recipients of care, service users and carers become educators in their own right, and are influencing the next generation of practitioners. The PaCT initiative offers a bold and sustainable way to bridge the gap between theory and real-world practice. It humanises the learning experience, embeds lived experience as a vital source of knowledge, and helps to shape a workforce that is not only clinically competent but also grounded in empathy, dignity, and ethical care. Recognising the value of PaCT is a recognition of what the future of nurse education must look like: one where compassion is not only taught, but genuinely understood, deeply felt, and consistently practised.