Person Centred Care

When I sat down this afternoon to write this article it started out being about the CQC, how Care Homes could improve their rating from inadequate too Good, possibly even with our help and support to Outstanding.

However, the more I researched my article and ensured we had all the facts to provide the more I realised this article isn’t even about the CQC or how care homes fail inspections.  This article was about People Not Policy, deliverable Person Centred Care.  The actual reason why so many care homes fail to meet standards and why so many carers are failing to provide a high standard of care.

Person Centred Care, also described as ‘patient-centred care’, ‘client-centred care’, or ‘resident-centred care’.  Each of these options has a very specific context.

‘Resident-centred’ is very specific to people who live, either temporarily or permanently, in care homes and other long-stay residences.

‘Patient-centred care’ is about patients as people who are accessing the health system for care and treatment in, for example, a hospital or GP surgery.

‘Client-centred care’ often refers to people who access mental health services as clients, and we might also use this word for those accessing health or care services but who may not be ill – a young mother speaking to a health visitor about looking after her baby, perhaps.

So when we speak of person-centred care, we are trying to bring all those options into a single definition.  But what does it mean?

Simply put, being person-centred is about focusing care on the needs of the person rather than the needs of the service. Most people who need health care these days aren’t happy just to sit back and let health care staff do what they think is best. They have their own views on what’s best for them and their own priorities in life. So as health care workers, we have to be flexible to meet their needs – we have to make our system suit them, rather than the other way around.

When was the last time you had to ask to go to the toilet, when was the last time you were told it wasn’t time to go to the toilet and when was the last time your body agreed with someone telling you it wasn’t time?

So what is person-centred care?

It means that the person is an equal partner in the planning of care and that his or her opinions are important and are respected. That doesn’t mean that ‘what the person says, goes’, but it does mean that we have to take into consideration and act on what people want when we plan and deliver their care.

We can’t always assume, however, that a person will tell us what he or she thinks or wants.

There are many reasons why people may feel awkward about this, or they may live with a mental health condition, dementia or physical or learning disability that makes communication challenging.

So we may have to ask them what they want, using appropriate communication methods to actively encourage them to participate in their own care and be real partners in the decisions that are made. To support them with this, we need to make sure they get information in a format that is acceptable to them to help them make decisions about their care and treatment and to agree – or disagree – with the treatment plan that is developing.

We should always be prepared to negotiate with patients/clients to agree a plan that’s acceptable to them and the health care team.

Being person-centred means that when we plan care with the person, we think about the effect of what we’re doing on the person as a whole. Think, for example, of a young female health care assistant planning to bathe an older man. The ‘mechanics’ of the procedure are very straightforward – ensure the water temperature and depth are appropriate, ensure the bath hoist is working and is used properly, make sure the person’s dignity is protected, end up with the person being clean and refreshed. The health care assistant is perfectly competent to ensure all these issues are addressed.

But what might the older man feel about being bathed by a young woman who might be no older than his own daughter, or even granddaughter? Will it make him feel helpless, humiliated, useless? And does he want a bath in the first place? When we begin to think of the care we give in this way – of the effect of what we’re doing on the whole person – we’re giving care in a person-centred way. And that might mean compromise – the health care assistant might, for instance, negotiate with the man and agree that for today, a wash from a basin at the bedside or the bathroom will be sufficient.

Being person-centred means that we always have the person’s safety, comfort and well-being uppermost in our mind. There is much we can do to promote people’s safety, and we look at this in some detail in promoting patient safety. Ensuring people are comfortable calls for us to be aware of the things that can cause discomfort – feeling cold or hot, having a thirst or being hungry, being in pain or having an itch, needing to go to the toilet or change a sitting position, for instance –  and taking steps to relieve them.  Having people’s well-being uppermost means that nothing we do – or don’t do – causes the person any physical, emotional or social harm.

And being person-centred means being aware of a person’s emotional and spiritual well-being. Spiritual care is not just about religious beliefs and practices: it also reflects a person’s values, relationships and need for self-expression.