Story, Mission, Ethos, Resource Package and What Next?

Formation Story

The Phronesis Foundation was established by five experienced healthcare professionals and academics in response to widespread challenges in ethical decision-making in healthcare, aiming to provide resources and support based on their research into practical wisdom in medical communities.

Our Mission

The overall mission for the foundation is to make a difference by engaging with practices, starting with but not limited to medical practice, in a quest that cultivates virtues of practices with a purpose or telos of wellbeing for all in society. To achieve this phronesis is used as the theoretical foundation of the work and hence the name. The particular form of phronesis referred to is the concept of practical wisdom gained from previous ethical decisions and actions and applied to navigate a way through the many virtues applicable to the situations under consideration. The original research collected many accounts and observations of doctors which conveyed what it means to them to make ethical decisions including situations when they felt the decision was not ethical for whatever reason. By drawing on those stories as a whole, fifteen main virtues were found and conveyed in a film series and a wisdom wheel app which showcased the doctors' ‘collective practical wisdom’.


Ethos

Supporting practices moving towards excellence


People feeling fulfilled in their role and in their workplace


Customers, patients and service users benefiting


Society (in economic, social and environmental terms) benefitting from equality in wellbeing chances for everyone


The ethos of supporting the use of these resources is to offer them as a non-prescriptive moral debating resource for reflection and discussion. In this way they can be used and adapted to create the virtues applicable to the practice and situation under consideration by those using them. This has already been done in a series of evaluated pilots and was found to work well. Users reported that it improved their ethical decision making approach. Our further ethos arises from the resources being developed using UK Research Council funding at the Universities of Birmingham, Warwick, Nottingham and Cumbria – in other words public sector funding. The foundation is only interested, therefore, in covering staff and expenses costs for supporting the training offered and for maintaining the resources. Any funding beyond that will be put into research to grow the application potential to wider healthcare and other practices which contribute to the wellbeing of society. The underlying approach of focusing on practice virtue ethics, which has an inherent aim of serving human and community flourishing, aligns with the 'not for profit' organisational status of the Foundation. We have a fully registered trading subsidiary called Phronesis Research and Development Ltd. to contract with organisations and allow us to manage the commercial aspects related to the provision of the services below.

Resource Package

The research on which ‘The Phronesis Foundation’ is based asked the question ‘What does it mean to the medical community to make good/ wise/ ethical decisions for patients and their communities?’ The further question was ‘Can the findings gathered from asking this question be used to cultivate phronesis (practical wisdom) in decision making?’ The answer to this second question, based on a full year of pilot impact and engagement evaluations was a resounding ‘Yes’. As a result the Foundation is now in a position to offer the learning and approach developed from this work in the following forms:

  • The licence agreement to allow use of the resources (film series, app and other written supporting materials).

  • Train the trainer style package of support to allow organisations or individuals to roll out the approach and resources with colleagues.

  • A CPD training programme to coach qualified professionals one-to-one or in groups in the approach and use of the resources in order to get the very best from them.

  • Medical school/ healthcare faculty undergraduate or postgraduate modular programme with assessment design included.

  • Research to generate a set of training resources for ethical decision making that are tailored and contextualised for your practice outside or inside the health and social care sector.

Whether you are a medical student, fully trained medic, allied health professional, healthcare manager, medical ethics educator or a leader from another sector wanting your organisation to make better ethical decisions, this offer will help you. Ethical decision-making can reduce risks, minimise damage and create value for the organisation and those they serve. Furthermore, organisations with a strong ethical standpoint are more likely to attract a new generation of ethically-minded service/product users and job seekers. The added complexity of the COVID-19 context makes this highly relevant right now because many people have already been impacted by decisions which they perceive as unhelpful.