How many employees of the hospital do I have contact with when I have
an appointment? Maybe it starts weeks before with someone on the
phone trying to book a time that suits my crazy schedule. Then the receptionist
when I book in, a nurse who sends me for an ECG, the person who does the ECG,
the phlebotomist who takes my blood, the consultant who talks me through my
options... And many more, the list is unbelievably long
Who do I remember? The one with the information is usually front of
my mind, the things I need to know or do once I leave. However, they are
not the only one…
Who makes a difference to your visit? to me it's not all about the
medical treatment I receive, it's about my whole experience, how I was treated,
how people spoke to me, the way questions were asked, the respect given to my
answers.
Isn't a huge part of our patient experience about the staff and how
they interact with us? I bet you can think of good and bad experiences with
staff that have effected your overall experience?
I was in A&E late one night
and not long after we arrived a nurse spoke to my wife rudely and abruptly when
discussing my treatment plan, not taking time to explain things clearly. It was
obvious that she was doing 100 jobs at once and that she was stressed out so in
my semi awake state I just carried on and ignored her. However, for my wife,
who was in a heightened state of stress herself, this one interaction tainted
was to be a 3 day stay in hospital.
Then there was the nurse who noticed that i was wide awake in the middle of the night after a life changing diagnosis was given to me just hours before. I had no wifi, no way if finding out what this diagnosis really meant and without me saying anything, she went online and printed out information about the condition for me and say and talked it through with me after giving me time to read it. Ill never forget her, that night was just a bank holiday weekend shift to her but to me my life changed and she was very much a part of it.
That
nurses bad night, or maybe even just a bad moment in time became our bad 3 days
I always think of the staff
working out of sight, the people analysing our blood, trying to get us a bed.
The individuals who do these jobs save
lives too, but with none of the credit. My dad’s 1st job was
analysing people’s blood, he recalls clearly a night when he was due to go to a
football match (his true passion) when a blood sample of a new born baby came
into the lab and needed analysing to determine their treatment… of course he
stayed and of course he did it, because he cared about that patient. I’m sure
no one said thank you but I’m sure the family were grateful. In case you are
worried (which im sure you are!) he made his match and his beloved Chelsea won 2-0
!
‘But It’s their job’… true it is, but they work long hours and
often antisocial hours.
‘They get paid for it’… true
but it’s also often a vocation, to my mind the pay doesn’t represent the roles
these individuals have.
So why do I care? Why does it matter to me? It matters to me if the
staff experience in the NHS is poor, their experience has a knock on effect on
the quality, compassion and safety of my care. These days and nights we
spend in their care might be their ‘3rd night shift this week’, or
their son’s birthday that they couldn’t take off… for me it’s one of those
nights I could have died, or the day I watch my relative pass away or we find
out that our parent has cancer, maybe if we are lucky the day our child was
born.
It matters to me that the staff experience
of working in the NHS leads to them really sharing in these life changing moments for what they are, enhancing our
experience and not negatively impacting it.
