Putting patients at the heart of quality

A key catch phrase to emerge during the Health and Social Care Act’s tumultuous passage into law was “no decision about me without me.” The principle behind the phrase is that giving patients more choice and control will help to make sure services are designed around them and are more responsive to their needs.

Patients can certainly bring a different perspective to the quality improvement process. Patients see every step of the care pathway for a certain condition whereas professionals tend to see only one episode, which means that patients can see shortcomings in care that professionals might be blind to. “Healthcare professionals don’t know what the patient had to go through to get to them or what is actually awaiting them after they have finished,” points out Anna Gregor, clinical lead for the Scottish patient safety programme fellowship at Healthcare Improvement Scotland.