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NHS Change Day
Last year a single tweet (not by me I
hasten to add!) sparked an idea that led to 189,000 people making personal pledges
to change something in to improve the NHS for patients. This was the first NHS Change Day. March 3rd 2014 is the second NHS Change Day where the aim is for over
half a million pledges. Before it's official launch on March 3rd we are already over half way to this target.
Being Open With Patients
This year, as well as supporting pledges
made by others, mypersonal pledge is about improving the openness and transparency of the
NHS. The NHS has a chequered track
record on being open. The National
Patient Safety Agency originally published guidance in 2005 on communicating
effectively with patients when things go wrong, under a headline of Being Open. Since 2009 it has been it has been a key
requirement of the NHS Litigation Authority, who provide insurance cover for
all NHS Trusts, that they have well designed policies to help ensure they are
open with patients and families when things go wrong (requirement 2.10 of the NHSLARisk Management Standards).
In April 2013 it became a contractual
requirement for providers of NHS services to be open with patients and their
families when they suffer serious harm through a contractual duty of candour (section
SC35 in the StandardNHS Contract). It was a recommendation
of Sir Robert Francis’s report
on the public inquiry into failings at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust
that there should be a statutory duty of candour. The government, in theirresponse, said they will pass laws to introduce this.
NHS Board Transparency
The Professional StandardsAuthority Standards for members of NHS boards and Clinical Commissioning Group governingbodies in England require that board members, and therefore boards, are
open. It states:
“I will be open about the reasoning, reasons and processes
underpinning my actions, transactions, communications, behaviours and
decision-making and about any conflicts of interest”
In spite of all these guidance,
requirements, contractual duties, standards and impending legislation, some
parts of the NHS on some occasions are still not as open and transparent as we
should be. I deliberately say ‘we’
because I take personal responsibility for the actions or inactions within my
power to change where we are not open in the best interest of patients and public.
This is why my NHS Change Day pledge is
to challenge any lack of, or perceived lack of, transparency or openness that I
come across.
Using Open Language
Another significant way in which the
NHS can be less than transparent to patients and the public is in the language
that we use. During last night’s WeNursesTwitter Chat about ‘standardised languages’ part of the conversation turned
to the jargon, abbreviations and acronyms that health professionals use on an
all too frequent basis.
As a key part of my pledge, I aim to
challenge others and reduce my own use of unexplained jargon, abbreviations and
acronyms. One conclusion from last night’s
chat was that the use of jargon can alienate people, engaging with people in a
language they understand is essential to build rapport and ensure they are not
disempowered. Nelson Mandela once said:
"If you talk to a man in a language he understands,
that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his
heart."
Sometimes not using complicated
language can be difficult. If you want
to see in practice how hard this can be; try using the Up Goer 5 tool to explain any every day
concept, object or idea. It will only
let you use the most often used ten hundred words. This idea came from a challenge to explain the
Saturn V rocket in simple terms. An
explanation of the story is here.
