The Department of Health’s Mandate is clear, the objective spelled out in plain language: the NHS must become dramatically better at involving people with long-term conditions in their own healthca...
There comes a time in your life when you start to get preoccupied about what the world looks like for older people, profoundly hoping it will get better before you have to experience it for yoursel...
Whether we are a patient, manager or clinician, all the conversations we have in healthcare settings should be open, honest and 'person to person' rather than 'label to label'. I was thinking ab...
There is a new orthodoxy: people who use health services can no longer be viewed as passive recipients of care but must be active co-producers of their own health. But there remains a stubborn g...
Sometimes there will be choices to make about your healthcare. If you are asked to make a choice, make sure you get the answers to these three questions: What are my options? What are the b...
This month’s Health Affairs contains a touching narrative by Amy Berman, a US health foundation executive who, with the help of a doctor that respected her goals, chose palliative care over aggress...
Last week was a week worthy of reflection. Monday saw the publication of the information strategy – The power of information – which sets a ten-year framework for transforming information for th...
There is an emerging consensus amongst professionals, patients and politicians that patients have a central role in the decision making process about their health. But scratch the surface of tha...
I had a conversation recently with two midwives. Both had been trained in shared decision making and had the ‘light bulb’ moment when they realised that, although they thought they’d been providing...
Two weeks ago we brought together over 100 people to mark the end of our MAGIC programme, which supported teams to embed shared decision making in everyday clinical practice. There were some great ...
