"What does Patient Centred Care look like?"

Where, oh where, has the human touch gone?

When my life-long friend, an 87-year-old retired health professional, was admitted to hospital after a fall, there appeared to me to be a complete paralysis of the system.

As a Care Plan was already in place, my friend appeared fit to go home within 10 days.

However, the NHS decided that they should assess my friend. This would start in a couple of weeks......there was no hurry.

(For whom? )

I watched my friend deteriorate daily.

Normally slightly confused, the removal from her own environment made her thoroughly miserable. The greatest miss was her best friend - her dog. There were rules in the geriatric ward: no dogs.

The only solace that would allay her anxiety was forbidden.

The constant stalling on her assessment increased her agitation over her separation from her Best Friend, This caused increased confusion, and I realised that staff would be totally unable to assess her mental state unless she could be returned home.

To this end, I wrote to the doctor, suggesting a temporary plan. I, with considerable health care experience could offer my home to her for 7-14 days. My home is fully accessible - it is ramped, with Closomat toilet, extra wide doors, and hoist. I have all my Disclosure Certificates. This would allow her to be reunited with her dog.

I wrote, expressing my concerns, offering this solution, and explaining that my friend had no next of kin, but that I had been tasked with keeping her in the Community, and had begun the task in 2004.

This missive was greeted with astounding arrogance and discourtesy. No reply was received, and although it was marked Private and Confidential, my personal mobile number was passed to the staff.

A case conference was called, to which I was invited. However, it was not attended by any Senior Personnel, No Consultant, no Physiotherapist, no OT. Nobody even chaired this "meeting".

What was it?

I have never known anything like this, so cannot comment on a group of her friends getting together for a pow wow in a hospital.

If the aim is patient centred care, why is there no active seeking of those who have done it? Is it simply more jargon?

The lack of interest/questions/queries from those who are "in charge" is terrifying. How many of them could describe person centred care in detail?

If they cannot describe what it looks like, they cannot be aiming for it.  Therefore, they cannot do it.