New NICE guidance has been launched to provide the evidence and direction for a cultural shift to patient-centred care.
Both guidance and a ‘quality standard’ have been released on what the experience of patients should be following the government’s white paper Equity and excellence: liberating the NHS that highlighted it as an ongoing challenge.
Continuity of care is key to patients receiving effective and appropriate care, the guidance says. Relevant information should be shared between professionals and across healthcare boundaries to support high-quality care.
Each patient’s requirement for continuity of care should be assessed, it stipulates, and this may involve the patient seeing the same healthcare professional throughout a single episode of care, or ensuring continuity within a healthcare team.
For patients who use a number of different services, doctors must ensure effective coordination and prioritisation of care to minimise the impact on the patient.
Other important issues include:
- Respect for the patient: all staff should treat patients with respect, kindness, dignity, compassion, understanding, courtesy and honesty.
- Patient concerns: raising and discuss sensitive issues (such as sexual activity, continence or end-of-life care).
- Patient independence: providing the support they need to maintain their independence as far as possible.
- Consent and capacity: obtaining and documenting informed consent from the patient.
- Tailoring healthcare services for each patient: recognising patients as individuals within the healthcare system.
- Patient views and preferences: allow patients to express their personal needs and preferences for care.
- Feedback and complaints: encourage feedback and respond.
- Communication: ensure that the environment is conducive to discussion and that the patient’s privacy is respected.
The guidance authors said: “This guidance is directed primarily at clinical staff, but patient experience is also significantly affected by contacts with non-clinical staff such as receptionists, clerical staff and domestic staff. Services need to ensure that non-clinical staff are adequately trained and supported to engage with patients in ways that enhance the patient experience.
“Taken together, the recommendations in this guidance capture the essence of a good patient experience. Their implementation will help to ensure that healthcare services are acceptable and appropriate, and that all people using the NHS have the best possible experience of care.”
NICE clinical guidelines are shaped around both clinical and economic evidence, and include recommendations concerned with ensuring a good patient experience. A quality standard for patient experience has been developed alongside this guidance. NICE quality standards are a set of specific, concise statements and associated measures. They set out aspirational, but achievable, markers of high-quality, cost-effective care, NICE says.
Read the guidance.
Read a blog on continuity of care.
Tags: NICE, Patient experience
