Patient focus updates - 13 September 2012

New policy, guidance and initiatives from across the UK that focus on the patient perspective and experience. For more information about this theme see Quality and Safety e-Bulletin: Patient focus.

Some of the resources linked to are in PDF format - see how to access PDF files.

BMC Nursing: Social meanings and understandings in patient-nurse interaction in the community practice setting: a grounded theory study. “The patient-nurse relationship is a traditional concern of healthcare research. However, patient-nurse interaction is under examined from a social perspective. Current research focuses mostly on specific contexts of care delivery and experience related to medical condition or illness, or to nurses' speciality. Consequentially, this paper is about the social meanings and understandings at play within situated patient-nurse interaction in the community practice setting in a transforming healthcare service.”

Carers UK: Facts about carers. This is a key digest of all the key facts and figures about carers drawn from various surveys and research looking at who carers are across the UK, employment, health, age, tasks, finances and poverty, and rights.

CQC: Your rights under the Mental Health Act. The three booklets provide helpful information for people who are detained in hospital, on a community treatment order, and those who have been recommended electro-convulsive therapy.

DH: A year of engagement – annual report of the national Allied Health Professions Patients’ Forum 2011-2012. Written by patients, the annual report looks at the highlights and outcomes of the forum during the year, including the creation of the forum itself.

DH: Interim integration measures for patient experience. This NHS Future Forum report on Integration recommended that new patient experience measures should be developed to evaluate patients’ experiences across whole journeys of care.

DH: Students starting secondary school urged to get to know their school nurse. The service has been working with young people – supported by the British Youth Council and North West Regional Youth Work Unit – to design eye-catching materials to promote the range of services available from school nurses and how to access them.

DH: Stoptober campaign will encourage smokers to quit for 28 days. Smokers are being asked to give up smoking for 28 days from 1 October in the first ever mass quit attempt launched today by the Chief Medical Officer Professor Dame Sally Davies. People who stop smoking for 28 days are 5 times more likely to stay smokefree, so smokers who sign up will be given support and encouragement throughout the month.
Stoptober website. Includes a free app and resource pack.

Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC): Consultation on service user involvement in education and training programmes approved by the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). We are seeking the views of stakeholders on a proposal to amend our standards of education and training and supporting guidance to require the involvement of service users in approved programmes. The HCPC is proposing to amend the standards and guidance so that in future all programmes will need to involve service users in some way in order to be approved by us.

NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement (NHS Institute): The Engagement Cycle: new downloadable overview PDF. This resource is for commissioners of health services, it sets out what is required of you when engaging patients, carers and the public in the decisions you will make about health service provision and provides practical advice, case-study examples and links to other vital information.

NHS Patient Feedback Challenge: winners of the NHS Patient Feedback Challenge. Nine ambitious patient experience projects are about to start spreading their ideas to other areas of the NHS. Each of the projects has a community page which is accessible by all.

Reform Scotland: Patients first: improving access to GP practices (PDF 405KB). This report from think tank Reform Scotland examines the practical arrangements regarding how patients access their GPs and whether these could be improved to encourage a provision of service more suited to patients’ needs. It argues that patient choice could be improved by opening up general practice to a larger range of providers and also makes recommendations for a greater amount of information to be made available to the public.

Welsh Government: New group to advise on learning disability issues. The Welsh Government has established a new group to champion learning disability issues and provide specialist advice to ministers on matters affecting people with a learning disability. Members will include representatives of the key voluntary organisations working in the learning disability field as well as health professionals and representatives of the Association of Directors of Social Services.