Excelcare Conference Highlights How to Respond to Feedback with HEART

Set in the picturesque grounds of Braxted Park Estate in Essex, Excelcare’s leadership conference brought teams together to explore how to respond to feedback with HEART.

In the day-to-day delivery of person-centred care, teams often face complex situations and challenging circumstances. At times, this can lead to feedback from residents, families or professionals about how a situation was handled and how the response could have been improved.

As the care sector continues to evolve, it is vital that teams are equipped to adapt and meet people’s needs. With this in mind, Director of Care, Quality and Governance Wendy Cowell hosted a leadership conference focused on addressing negative feedback and supporting colleagues to respond with empathy, confidence and accountability.

HEART stands for Hear them out, Empathy, Accountability, Reassurance and Take Action. This simple five-step approach was developed to help team members respond in a way that recognises the person behind the concern, values how they feel and ensures issues are handled appropriately and compassionately.

Throughout the day, Wendy led informative discussions, encouraged collaboration among colleagues and shared real-life examples that demonstrated how using HEART could lead to better outcomes.

The HEART approach helps ensure concerns are not treated simply as isolated incidents or governance tasks, but as opportunities to listen, reassure, improve and strengthen relationships with the people we support. It also ensures that opportunities to improve are recognised addressed early, so they don’t develop into formal complaints.

Feedback from the team members who attended the conference was overwhelmingly positive, with key takeaways from the day including:

“I like the HEART acronym and the examples in our booklet of best practice responses.” “I feel more confident in making sure responses to concerns are personal and heartfelt, rather than corporately scripted.” “Having alternative wording of how to respond with HEART was very good and I felt I was able to relate to this. I also enjoyed connecting with colleagues.”

The conference served as a powerful reminder that behind every piece of feedback is a person who wants to feel heard, understood and reassured. With HEART at the centre of those conversations, Excelcare’s leaders are better equipped to respond with compassion, strengthen relationships and continue delivering high-quality person-centred care.

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