Dignity in practice - examples and experiences

These are some of the examples and experiences which were highlighted during the RCN's Dignity campaign.

Some of the stories on this page are in PDF format [See how to access PDF files].

Stepping stones to dignity at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire
Emma Fish, Practice Facilitator from University Hospital, Coventry

"We have been doing a large amount on dignity in Coventry at University Hospital. We have managed to engage our trust board and have just completed our second progress update. We have devised a framework and standards for dignity which we hope to get published."

Read: Emma's full story about Stepping stones to dignity (PDF 16KB).

The experience of the Medway Elderly Care Nutrition Group
Glyn Scott, Nutrition Nurse Specialist from the Medway NHS Foundation Trust

“Research by charity Age Concern (2006) found that four out of 10 people aged over 65 admitted to hospital are malnourished, but the condition of many of them will worsen while there. A further 20 per cent may even develop malnutrition during their stay. A recent report by BAPEN (2007) found that the risk of malnutrition was 34 percent in those patients above 80. This is not a statistic that we wanted to be associated with at Medway Maritime Foundation Trust..."

Read: Glyn's full story about The Elderly Care Nutrition Group (PDF 24KB).

Dignity poem
Vicki Lines, Senior Staff Nurse, Doulton Ward, St Thomas Hospital

I went to a dignity meeting and felt so compelled after that I wrote a poem. We are trying to put procedures in place on Doulton ward and HDU to highlight dignity.

Read: Vicki's poem The dignity challenge!(PDF 15KB).

Dignity at mealtimes
Martha Matsvai, Greenhill Mission Care

Following some concerns on the need for dignity of residents at mealtimes, a staff meeting was held and we agreed on the steps to take to ensure that our residents had dignified experiences during meal times that they will be served in a calm unrushed and safe environment and that the protected meal times protocol was to be observed. It was agreed that we needed to identify and separate the residents according to their needs that is those who needed minimal assistance or supervision from the ones who needed full assistance with having meals. This has proved very successful in that more staff are allocated to the area where the residents need maximum assistance ensuring dignified meal times. This is like a journey to promote dignity with a lot of ups and downs, what makes it a success story is the continuous reflection, planning and implementing as a team therefore making dignity everybody's business.

Dignified care for people with learning disabilities
Jim Blair, Senior Lecturer Learning Disabilities, Kingston University and St. George's University of London

“Gwen Hunter, a mother of an adult son and a daughter both with learning disabilities, contacted me about Anne, her friend who was on an inpatient on a ward at St George’s Hospital London. Gwen was worried that the nursing and other staff may not be able to support Anne..."

Read: Jim's full story on a Learning disability example of dignified care (PDF 16KB).

Leadership in compassionate care project
Richard Mackay, the Western General Hospital, Edinburgh

Our ward is playing a key role in the leadership in compassionate care project. The aim of this three year project is to ensure that compassionate nursing practice is integral to care within NHS Lothian and within the undergraduate programme at Napier University. An important part of the project is to disseminate both the learning and outcomes to other organisations.

Read: Richard's First hand account of the leadership in compassionate care project (PDF 24KB).

Success in raising awareness about dignity at Central Manchester and Manchester  Children's University Hospitals
Carol Wilde, Education and Development Practitioner, Acute Medicine

Acute medicine has introduced dignity champions for each ward area as a pilot for the rest of the trust. The champions are picked due to their ability to promote change, challenge behaviour and inject enthusiasm within their team. The champions meet once a month to discuss and resolve issues within medicine, some of these issues are simple but fundamental to dignity such as the lack of clean linen at weekends. As a group the champions are a powerful lobby and have made some very significant changes already. The next step is to deliver education for all staff in respect to dignity and everyone can learn how to make a difference. The champions will lead on this project and increase awareness throughout the trust.

Dignity at work
Karen Phillips, Community Children's Outreach Team Leader, Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

The Children's Community Nursing Outreach Team were looking at ways to facilitate early discharge home from hospital for children and young people. The paediatric consultants operate an on-call system where they are on-call for a week. This week is termed the 'hot' week e.g. clinics are cancelled and the consultants pick up all new admissions and referrals.

The outreach team thought of introducing an identified nurse each day that could pick up all referrals from the inpatient ward or the assessment bay. This nurse became known as the 'hot' nurse.

Following a period of leave the outreach team leader became aware that some members of the team were not happy with the term 'hot' nurse as they felt it demeaned nurses and nursing and had inappropriate connotations for us as a profession. The term was changed immediately these concerns were made known and the system is now referred to as the 'nurse on-call'.

The team leader has been involved in the RCN Dignity campaign - she initially had not thought of the term 'hot' nurse in any other way as to describe the nurse who would take acute urgent referrals.

I feel this is a good example of the differences that make us human beings and can highlight the difference for each of us in 'dignity'. The nurses concerned would not have felt dignified when it was their turn to be 'hot' and how a simple change of phrase/term to 'nurse on-call' restored and respected their dignity.