ILC: the global voice for fundamental care.
The ILC is an international network bringing people together to transform and improve how fundamental care is delivered, taught and researched.
We do this by:
- Mapping the current challenges to the delivery of safe, high-quality fundamental care
- Collaborating on international research projects to generate reliable, up-to-date evidence
- Sharing the best available evidence throughout our networks and with the wider public
- Advocating for radical transformation of fundamental care policy, practice and education
- Leading this transformation at local, national and international levels
The ILC is governed by an international Steering Committee, which has representatives from eight countries.
The administrative home of the ILC is the College of Nursing and Health Sciences at Flinders University, Australia.
The International Learning Collaborative Declaration
The International Learning Collaborative (ILC) is an organisation dedicated to creating practical resources to ensure that the Fundamentals of Care are visible and valued in every care setting globally.
Fundamental Care involves actions on the part of the care team that respect and focus on a person’s essential needs to ensure their physical and psychosocial wellbeing. These needs are met by developing positive and trusting relationships with the person being cared for as well as their family and carers (Feo et al., 2017).
The ILC community shares a global vision that recognises the challenges of making fundamental care a valued and essential element in a person’s self-care, health and wellbeing and a set of evidence-based behaviours and actions that inform every educational, clinical and care setting. For radical transformation within health systems globally, we must engage all members involved in care settings: consumers, clinicians, educators, leaders, researchers, policy-makers, politicians and students.
The ILC’s efforts over the past decade have led to increased recognition of the importance of fundamental care however, more needs to be done globally. The ILC provides a platform for members to collaborate and advocate for real-world systems change. It is only through coordinated, collaborative effort that we will, and must, achieve real change. The ILC needs people who value Fundamental Care and champion the development and implementation of change across all sectors of care.
To generate practical, sustainable solutions, we need to substantially rethink fundamental care. Patient outcomes and experiences, staff well-being, safety and quality, and the economic viability of healthcare systems all benefit by actioning Fundamental Care. The ILC is the vehicle to achieve this change for radically transforming fundamental care delivery through:
- Value: fundamental care must be foundational to all caring activities, systems and institutions.
- Talk: fundamental care must be explicitly articulated in all caring activities, systems and institutions.
- Do: fundamental care must be explicitly actioned and evaluated in all caring activities, systems and institutions.
- Own: fundamental care must be owned by each individual who delivers care, works in a system that is responsible for care or works in an institution whose mission is to deliver care.
- Research: fundamental care must undergo systematic and high-quality investigations to generate the evidence needed to inform care practices and shape health systems and education curricula.
The ILC is underpinned by the four foundational pillars including Evidence, Leadership, Access and Inclusivity. We cannot move forward if we don’t build the evidence base for our practice and policies around the importance of getting fundamental care right; this evidence won’t make a difference if we don’t have the leaders who will change our systems and ways of thinking; and if our ILC organisation is not built on principles of access to information and opportunities for all and embracing an inclusive way of operating, then our words will not follow with sustainable actions.
ILC members advocate for systemic change within health and education systems worldwide. They achieve this by sharing their work on fundamental care at local, national and international conferences; influencing policy decision makers; and embedding fundamental care in their day-to-day work.
The ILC unites and gives voice to a cohesive global collaborative who believe that the Fundamental Care needs be positioned at the very heart of care.