Kindlab was launched to inspire innovation and small acts of kindness throughout NSW Health. In Kindlab’s inaugural year, seven initiatives were selected for support during an inspirating ‘shark tank’ pitch.
It has been a busy two years for Kindlab, as we tested how to best support project leads by helping bring their ideas to life, fostering collaboration across the healthcare system and amplifying impactful innovations. We focused on supporting project leads in bringing their ideas to life, fostering collaboration across the healthcare system, and amplifying impactful innovations.
The project leads of Kindlab 2023 have shown that by focusing on kindness, we can create a more effective, humane, and compassionate healthcare system. Each project lead has progressed their initiative with passion, often while balancing the demands of very busy day jobs and personal lives.
We’ve seen first hand how vital kindness and compassion are in healthcare—qualities too often sidelined by other system pressures. [1]
Kindness often stems from love, altruism, and empathy. Listening to understand helps create that empathy. A podcast is a powerful way to listen and connect. The Kind Side Podcast was created to inspire more small acts of kindness in health by sharing conversations that deepen our understanding of each other's lived experiences and perspectives.
The project aimed to publish episodes of a podcast to increase empathy and understanding between people in health care settings and inspire more small acts of kindness in health.
So far, The Kind Side has recorded 30 episodes in co-production with a consumer, featuring stories from patients, carers, and health care workers. Episodes were recorded in hospitals and community health settings, bringing authentic voices and experiences to the forefront.
Feedback from listening and reflection sessions with staff and consumers showed that most participants:
Promotion across Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District and NSW Health has encouraged staff and consumers to engage with the podcast, with continued listening expected to nurture lasting benefits and support the translation of kindness and compassion into everyday practice.
The Kind Side: Stories from NSW Health invites you to dive into the human experience of healthcare. Through stories of warmth, empathy, and small acts of kindness, it highlights the ways patients can feel safe and supported during their most vulnerable times. Fran Wood, Project lead
The Kind Side: Stories from NSW Health invites you to dive into the human experience of healthcare. Through stories of warmth, empathy, and small acts of kindness, it highlights the ways patients can feel safe and supported during their most vulnerable times.
Visit The Kind Side Podcast to listen to episodes on demand.
Connecting Women Through Stories, Tell Her From Me honours the voices of women finishing their gynaecological cancer treatment, supporting them to write a card sharing wisdom and reflections on their experience for the next person about to begin their treatment journey.
The team are working on developing a toolkit to share with other local health districts by November 2025.
Launched in October 2024 within Central Coast Local Health District (CCLHD), the project has:
The project is already embedded in the Oncology Social Work everyday practice, at the Central Coast Cancer Centre. The team are also excited to now have two beautiful artworks, setting up our therapeutic space with warm and inviting furnishings.
Feedback from participants report emotional relief, empowerment, comfort, and connection.
We have learnt so much from this experience - mainly from the women themselves, who have transformed their lived experience into acts of generosity and meaning. Cindy Lyons and Lou Diviney, Project Leaders
We have learnt so much from this experience - mainly from the women themselves, who have transformed their lived experience into acts of generosity and meaning.
The Daily Dose of Compassion project was created to uplift patients, visitors, and staff while enhancing communication across Nepean Blue Mountains Local Health District (NBMLHD). Displaying affirmations on staff and patient-facing channels encouraging kindness, compassion and empathy.
Daily Dose of Compassion endeavours to foster kindness in the healthcare setting by displaying affirmations or quotes around the hospital and the staff intranet.
Using digital screens, the project shares affirmations, calming videos, health campaigns, service information, inclusive messages, and opportunities for feedback, creating moments of compassion and wellbeing in waiting rooms, hospital entrances, and high-traffic areas. As of June 2025, 10 screens are live across Blue Mountains, Nepean, and Hawkesbury District Hospitals, with two more planned for Lithgow and Nepean Hospitals in 2026. Waiting room screens display affirmations and calming videos over 25 times an hour, while entrance and high-traffic area screens show content over 100 times an hour. Additional messaging includes health advice, service updates, ED alternatives, and content promoting inclusivity and cultural safety.
The project was strongly embraced by facilities and services, with immediate recognition of the benefit of positive wellbeing messaging. Rollout to inpatient bedside televisions is expected in 2026 once system upgrades are completed.
District communications will maintain and refresh content using templates, guided by feedback from consumers and staff. Plans are underway to expand the screen network into Community Health Centres, further extending the reach of affirmations, health messaging, and compassionate communication across the district.
We will leave you with this quote: “In a world where you can be anything, be kind” - Jennifer Dukes Lee. Asvini Nagarajah, Project Leader
We will leave you with this quote: “In a world where you can be anything, be kind” - Jennifer Dukes Lee.
The Honouring the Fourth Trimester project began with a successful pitch by consumer Emily Mitchell through the inaugural NSW Health Kindlab program (2023). Emily recognised a gap: while resources abound for pregnancy, little support exists for the fourth trimester - the first 12 weeks after birth. This period is often filled with unrealistic expectations, leaving mothers unprepared, isolated, and vulnerable.
The Agency for Clinical Innovation (ACI) Maternity and Neonatal Network partnered with Emily (Nov 2024 – Jun 2025) to help establish the project.
This included conducting a rapid evidence check and environmental scan, mapping stakeholders, facilitating co-design workshops with mothers and clinicians, and developing resources. Following this, the NSW Ministry of Health Experience Team collaborated with Emily and Western NSW Local Health District to finalise the resource, pilot plan, and evaluation framework.
The ‘Beyond the Birth’ booklet, a maternal postnatal care planning tool, began pilot trials in September 2025. This resource helps women prepare for life after birth, supporting both their wellbeing and family relationships. The project continues to evolve, carrying Emily’s vision forward: a health system that prioritises and honours mothers during their most vulnerable transition.
New mothers are as vulnerable as new babies – it’s important that we support and honour their journey as well as the baby. Emily Mitchell, Consumer Project Lead
New mothers are as vulnerable as new babies – it’s important that we support and honour their journey as well as the baby.
A Virtual Reality (VR) training initiative which places clinicians in the shoes of a Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) patient to better understand and build empathy with patients who have difficulty navigating the health system.
The project team aim to run their first virtual training in October 2025.
After an initial technology evaluation, the team completed an end-to-end prototype at the Health Prototyping Centre and is in the process of testing this with their Advisory Group and clinicians.
The team worked with their Advisory Committee to shape a patient story that forms the basis of a virtual reality (VR) experience, enabling users to step into the story first hand. With Kindlab funding, they have produced a professional series of videos for immersive staff training. The VR experience is designed to share the perspectives and challenges of patients, consumers, and carers from CALD backgrounds, helping clinicians build greater understanding, empathy, and compassion in healthcare delivery.
Working with consumers, HETI, South Western Sydney Local Health District (SWSLHD) and Refugee Health Services, Cultural Compass has come to life and the team hopes to roll out the pilot in October 2025. Gordon Burnett, Project Lead
Working with consumers, HETI, South Western Sydney Local Health District (SWSLHD) and Refugee Health Services, Cultural Compass has come to life and the team hopes to roll out the pilot in October 2025.
Luba Horder is a devoted mother, carer, and advocate. Her daughter lives with a rare, incurable degenerative condition — one that brings daily pain and hidden challenges, yet is often invisible to others. Watching her daughter navigate these struggles with courage and grace inspired Luba to ask a powerful question: Do you SEE ME?
The Do You SEE ME initiative uses visual storytelling to bring these hidden realities to light. Through vignettes that capture glimpses of the everyday lives of people and families living with disability, the project fosters empathy, understanding, and respect. It shows how invisible disabilities can go unnoticed and how compassion, even in small acts, can transform someone's experience of care.
In partnership with the Sydney Local Health District Lived Experience Educators Network, Do You SEE ME has been showcased at the Patient and Family Experience Symposium and is expanding with new stories in development. These vignettes are created by filmmaker Jack Horder, continuing the project's mission to amplify lived experience in a way that is raw, human, and deeply moving.
For Luba, the initiative is both personal and universal. As she reflects, “Do you SEE ME?" is not just a question from one person, it is a call to action for us all to look beyond appearances and meet each other with compassion.
‘Do you SEE ME’ will create a platform to share diverse experiences, encouraging us to confront our discomfort. Luba Horder, Consumer Leader and Project Lead
‘Do you SEE ME’ will create a platform to share diverse experiences, encouraging us to confront our discomfort.
Implementing and embedding communication boards to support the provision of person centred, compassionate care and enhance staff member sense of achievement and connection to those they provide care for, work with, and to their profession.
The Sutherland Hospital has been using communication boards to elevate human experience by engaging patients and carers to understand and enable the things that truly matter. Since commencing, we have implemented boards on 8 wards.
Exploring “what matters to you” with patients, carers, visitors and staff, and have shared resources and in-services to promote engagement and education. Teams have developed their own trial boards, while we seek feedback to determine the best fit for our people and spaces.
Numerous ward-based initiatives have been established to engage staff and connect them to their sense of purpose. The project team have also hosted and promoted International ‘what matters to you?’ day.
We have seen culture shifts and many moments of joy from patients, carers, and the healthcare team.
[ I ] feel that as a patient the hospital is caring about me. How I feel is being heard.” - Patient, Cardiology Ward Julie Acquilina, Project Leader
[ I ] feel that as a patient the hospital is caring about me. How I feel is being heard.” - Patient, Cardiology Ward
For NSW Health staff wanting to keep up to date on a range of initiatives that will help you to transform patient experience, you can subscribe to receive our newsletter and find out more on Elevating the Human Experience intranet.
We want to hear your ideas for bringing more kindness to NSW Health. Applications open Thursday, 13 November and close Friday, 19 December 2025.
Pitch your idea to Kindlab 2025