Transcript The Care Campaign

CARE Campaign
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On the 9th November 2011, the Patients Association
published their third compendium of patient stories and at
the same time in partnership with the Nursing Standard
magazine Angela Rippon OBE, Vice President of the
Patients Association launched the CARE Campaign.
WHY – the CARE campaign? The Patients Association has
seen a huge increase in calls to our Helpline. When we
looked closely at the type of calls we noticed the reason
patients, their relatives and carers were contacting us time
and time again were around the fundamentals/essentials
of patient care.
The Rationale
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Our campaign is based on the four most frequent concerns
expressed by patients, their relatives and carers, regarding
poor patient care. These include:
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Patients not being helped to go to the toilet
Patients not given sufficient pain relief
Patients not given sufficient nutritional intake
Communication is inadequate (e.g. Call bells are
ignored)
The campaign recognises that everyone who goes into
hospital or a care home has a right to these fundamental
aspects of care. This is explicit in the NHS Constitution. We
have seen many reports, commissions and pledges that
have come to nothing. Now it is time for action from the
ward to the Board.
CARE Challenge
The CARE Challenge: As a minimum, all patients should get
assistance when they call for help, encouragement to eat
and drink, assistance with going to the toilet and receive
appropriate pain management.
CARE stands for:
C – communicate with compassion
A – assist with toileting, ensuring dignity
R – relieve pain effectively
E – encourage adequate nutrition
The care slogan is simple, easy to
remember and also useful. We hope
patients, the public, relatives and
nurses will use this Care slogan as a
care checklist.
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For healthcare staff in every sector to adopt the CARE
Challenge
To highlight obstacles healthcare staff face in delivering
the CARE Challenge.
For all UK health and social care organisations to sign up
to the CARE Challenge.
For UK patients, their carers and relatives to recognise the
CARE slogan and use it to challenge poor care as well as
celebrating good care.
To support healthcare who blow the whistle on failures to
deliver fundamental CARE.
What we have done so far
At the end of November 2011 the Patients Association wrote
to every Chair, Chief Executive, Director of Nursing
Services and Medical Director in the UK asking them to
sign up to our CARE Challenge and we have been
reassured by the commitment shown by MANY (but not all)
Trusts. SO WHAT NEXT FOR THE PATIENTS ASSOCIATION?
You will shortly receive from us details on the campaign to
display in your Hospital. Please do so. Unfortunately we
are not in a financial position to send every Hospital
posters but we will send you the digital artwork and we
would like a letter of commitment from the Chief Executive
saying their Trust have embraced the concept and aim to
deliver the care challenge to every patient in the UK.
A dialogue between health care workers and
patients is now open and is crucial to achieving the
highest standard of care that every UK patient is
entitled to.
The Patients Association will work with the Care Quality
Commission looking at Trusts who have responded
committing to the Care Challenge – we will share this
information with the CQC local inspectors and they will,
during their inspections look for evidence of commitment
to the delivery of the CARE challenge.
The Patients Association
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The Patients Association is an Independent Charity – we respond
to what people tell us. We want to work with every Trust in the
Country to make the experience of healthcare better for our
patients.
We have submitted applications to grant making bodies for funds
so we can employ staff to help us deliver on this challenge. We
are committed.
We are delighted to have had the opportunity to work with Gill
Heaton, Cheryl Lenney and their colleagues at MRI. I visited this
Trust months ago – I am really impressed with the work they do
and the commitment from staff here. Can we replicate even
some of the work they do so well here?
We would like the Patients Association to become the hub of
good and best practice so we can cascade the learning to every
Trust in the UK.
Influence
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On the 6TH of January 2012 the Prime Minister announced
that there would be a focus on improving quality in the
health service and the drive to ensure that every patient is
cared for with compassion and dignity in a clean
environment. His message was that the whole approach to
caring for people in this country needs to be reset and that
needs to start with this simple fact : caring for patients is
what nurses do, everything else comes second.
The Patients Association welcomed the initiative
everything in the announcement is a significant step
forward in meeting the demands of our Care Campaign.
The Patients Association have consistently said that Nurses
need time to care and we have for many years called for an
end to bureaucracy that stops effective nursing.
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Please email us and tell us how you are
embracing the CARE challenge. We would like
to work with you.
[email protected]
Our Helpline 0845 608 4455
Admin 0208 423 9111
Thank you.