Retracted: ‘We were on our knees long before COVID’: How healthcare workers experienced the compassionate care model during COVID‐19

AIM: This qualitative study aimed to explore the impact of a novel compassion‐based intervention on healthcare workers during a pandemic. SAMPLE: Participants were N = 10 healthcare workers (HCW) recruited from a healthcare organisation in Northern Ireland, including nurses, allied health professionals, managerial staff and administrative staff. The sample was 80% female with an average age of 45.1 years. INTERVENTION: All participants engaged in a compassion‐based staff support psychological intervention. The ‘compassionate care’ intervention was based on the compassion‐focussed staff support model. Modalities included face‐to‐face, remote, individual and group intervention, offered by clinical psychologists and psychotherapists. METHOD: Ethical approval was obtained through the researcher’s academic institution. After obtaining informed consent, participants completed individual interviews, analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. RESULTS: Findings highlighted model appropriateness and feasibility, detailing post‐intervention changes. Three themes were generated. The first two, Preparing for war: A threat without boundary and Masking the pain: Externalising resistance to compassion, describe the transition from an initial burnout state to a state of derealisation via avoidance coping. The final theme, Reconnection: Returning to compassion, highlights how participants rehabilitated via the intervention, reconnecting with relationships and personal values. CONCLUSION: Participants reported personal and professional experiential changes relating to compassion and resilience, while noting organisational blocks to compassion. The model appears appropriate across a variety of presentations and levels of chronicity of distress, across age, disciplines and gender groups, and for both managers and non‐managerial staff. Participants reported its usefulness in clinical and administrative settings, as well as application of the skills gained to settings outside work.