Patient voices
"As I live through my own story and hear of others through a different lens, I realise that this must be the currency for transforming the NHS... By listening to patients and making their voice and experience an integral part of the commissioning and planning services, perhaps we can achieve a patient-centred NHS " (Thomas 2006, p23).
Introduction
Patient stories can help build understanding that is based on actual experience. Stories can stimulate reflection and lead to the development of new ideas.
According to Wilcock and colleagues (2003), stories have three important qualities:
- firstly they are memorable and can be powerful incentives for change
- secondly because stories describe direct experience they can change a listener's understanding by offering fresh insights that may resonate with the listeners' own experience and knowledge of the context
- thirdly, stories can cross boundaries and appeal to a broad range of audiences. From this point of view, stories appear particularly helpful for use by interprofessional teams with members from a wide variety of personal and professional backgrounds.
Here are two patient stories. One digital story is told by Claire Allen. Our other story tells the experience of Kenneth Bullock as told by his son Ian.
References
Thomas, H. (2006) On patient stories Health Service Journal 116(6020) 24 August p.23
Wilcock PM, Brown GCS, Bateson J, Carver J, Machin S (2003) Using patient stories to inspire quality improvement within the NHS Modernization Agency collaborative programmes Journal of Clinical Nursing 12(3) May pp.422-430. [RCN members can access the full text via the RCN e-library].