All the small things

The resilience and calmness of children and young people, especially when they’re faced with serious illness, has always astounded me.

I had the privilege of spending two days talking to children, young people and their parents in December at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital Haematology and Oncology department. Tessa Davis, Paediatric Registrar at the hospital, was the driving force behind the day and the wider project that it was a part of - to get to the heart of what really matters to children coming into the hospital and to hear their feedback directly and importantly, in entirely their own words. Most of the children we spoke to were living with cancer, leukaemia or life threatening blood conditions and we were there asking them about their experiences of being treated. They were filled with compliments, as were their parents, and it was clear from the first few conversations that the staff were having a hugely positive impact on their recovery and their lives, but something more interesting to me emerged. Both children and parents breezed over clinical care, in preference for telling me about how the staff made them feel, how they spoke, how often they smiled.

Feedback on Patient Opinion has always highlighted how important positive staff attitudes are, how much they matter and what a difference it makes when they’re lacking and speaking to the children at the Royal Manchester proved the point even more strongly “I like the doctors, they always say hello and remember me. They ask about my dancing which is on a Wednesday night before my appointments on Thursday morning!” Of course, when parents and children feel confident that their medical care is top notch, they are likely to focus more on the interaction they have with the staff, but then how does that confidence come about? It struck me that it was predominantly all the ‘small things’, all the thought and care that staff show every day in caring for the children, that creates that confidence and in turn makes a really difficult time that bit less traumatic “You really get to know the staff personally…you build up trust with the staff here.”

Our hope here at Patient Opinion is that as budget cuts hit, and staff across the NHS feel the pressure of ever growing demands on their time, they remember that they make a huge difference just by being human “(My doctor) tells me just what he's going to do and what's happening to me. I used to be really worried about coming to hospital. I used to be frightened but I'm not now.”

 

(image courtesy of Barbatruc via weheartit.com)