Can changing clinician patient interactions improve healthcare quality? A scoping report for the Health Foundation

One of our strategic priorities is to inspire improvement through changing relationships between people and health services. The hypothesis that underpins our work in this area is: ‘The quality of care is a factor of the quality of the interactions between people who use services and people who provide them. Thus, transforming this dynamic is a [lever] for improving quality.’

In order to develop strategies that fully took this hypothesis into account, it was important for the Health Foundation to improve their understanding of this dynamic between service users and service providers. Fischer Associates were commissioned to help create a rich picture of a key aspect of this dynamic, the individual clinician–patient interaction. Their work is covered in this report.