Treating patients and service users with

respect, dignity and compassion

Contents
1. Issue
2. Actions
3. Background

Issue
People who use health and care services have the right to be treated with respect, dignity and
compassion by staff who have the skills and time to care for them.
But quality of care varies across the country. Despite many examples of excellent care, there
have also been some high-profile cases of staff mistreating people or ignoring their care
needs. Examples include the abuse of patients with learning difficulties at Winterbourne View
hospital and the neglect of patients under the care of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation
Trust.
Cases like these are reminders of the devastation that a lack of care can cause.
Understandably, they damage peoples trust in health and care services and lower staff
morale.

Actions
Putting people first in decisions about care
We want compassion to be a part of all health and social care services. This means making
quality of care as important as quality of treatment.
We are:

introducing a new national friends and family test from 1 April 2013 to ask patients if
they would recommend their ward or A&E department to friends and family if they
needed similar care or treatment the NHS can use this feedback to improve services
and the public can tell which hospitals are performing well
giving people information about health and care services to help them make informed
choices - for example through provider quality profiles, which tell people about the
training and qualifications of staff in social care services
introducing personal health budgets, which will give people with long term conditions
and disabilities greater choice, flexibility and control over the health care and support
they receive

We have also created Healthwatch England, an independent organisation that will make sure
that the public has a say in health and social care services.

Helping staff to be more compassionate

We need to make sure that NHS and social care services recruit the right staff to provide
compassionate care. But staff need the right leadership, education, training and support to
help them do their work as well as possible.
We are:

helping to implement Compassion in Practice, a 3-year strategy for building the

culture of compassionate care for nursing, midwifery and care staff
working with Health Education England to make sure the NHS recruits, appraises and
trains nursing and care staff according to their values as well as their professional
skills

working with Skills for Care and Skills for Health to develop minimum training
standards and a code of conduct for care workers - both will stress the importance of
dignity and respect

training more care workers to provide high quality care - we want to double the
number of apprentices in social care to 100,000 over 5 years to 2017

appointing 2 chief social workers to provide leadership roles for the social work
profession

spending 40 million to help nurses and midwives develop leadership skills and to
help them and their staff provide high quality care

We also want to use technology to free up more time for staff to care. Between 2013 and
2015, we are spending 100 million on providing nurses and midwives with the latest
technologies that will help them provide safer, more effective and more efficient care.

Keeping patients and service users safe

It is important to learn from mistakes in health and social care and to prevent them happening
again.
As well as setting out the actions we will take after the Winterbourne View scandal, we have
published our response to the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Inquiry Report.
We are also taking action to protect patients from avoidable harm. This includes making it
easier for staff to report their concerns about issues that are in the public interest without the
risk of suffering detriment - for example, victimisation or losing the chance to be promoted.

Measuring how successfully services treat people with respect

It is important that we know how successfully health and care services treat people with
respect, dignity and compassion, so that we can make changes, where necessary.
We use the national patient survey programme, run by the Care Quality Commission, to
measure patients experiences across a range of heathcare settings. The results are published
and patients can compare the quality of services at trust level, across the NHS, and
organisations can also compare themselves to other providers to find out where they need to
improve.
We will continue to publish the NHS Outcomes Framework and the Adult Social Care
Outcomes Framework, which explain what we need to measure to rate success. For 2013 to
2014, we have introduced measures of:

peoples experience of integrated care (for people who need both health and care
services at the same time)
the proportion of patients who would recommend their hospital to a friend or family
member (the friends and family test)
the number of vulnerable people who are referred for care to protect them from harm
and who say they feel safe in care

Background
In 2010 the government published its strategy for improving the NHS: Equity and
excellence: liberating the NHS. The strategy emphasises the importance of putting patients
and the public first and of ensuring people have high-quality care.
In 2012, we published Compassion in practice for nurses, midwives and care staff and the
white paper Caring for our future: reforming care and support to help make sure that all
health and social care services treat people with respect, dignity and compassion.

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Treat people as individuals

1. You must treat people as individuals and respect their dignity

2. You must not discriminate in any way against those in your care

3. You must treat people kindly and considerately

4. You must act as an advocate for those in your care, helping them to access relevant
health and social care, information and support

Respect people's confidentiality

5. You must respect people's right to confidentiality

6. You must ensure people are informed about how and why information is shared by
those who will be providing their care

7. You must disclose information if you believe someone may be at risk of harm, in
line with the law of the country in which you are practising

Collaborate with those in your care

8. You must listen to the people in your care and respond to their concerns and
preferences
9. You must support people in caring for themselves to improve and maintain their
health

10. You must recognise and respect the contribution that people make to their own
care and wellbeing

11. You must make arrangements to meet people's language and communication needs

12. You must share with people, in a way they can understand, the information they
want or need to know about their health

Ensure you gain consent

13. You must ensure that you gain consent before you begin any treatment or care
14. You must respect and support people's rights to accept or decline treatment and
care

15. You must uphold people's rights to be fully involved in decisions about their care

16. You must be aware of the legislation regarding mental capacity, ensuring that
people who lack capacity remain at the centre of decision making and are fully
safeguarded

17. You must be able to demonstrate that you have acted in someone's best interests if
you have provided care in an emergency

Maintain clear professional boundaries

18. You must refuse any gifts, favours or hospitality that might be interpreted as an
attempt to gain preferential treatment
19. You must not ask for or accept loans from anyone in your care or anyone close to
them
20. You must establish and actively maintain clear sexual boundaries at all times with
people in your care, their families and carers