Sweeping aside patient involvement during pandemic was too easy (5 June 2020)

Summary

To deliver a new normal that serves patients we must grab this opportunity to bake patient involvement into new structures, processes and cultures within the NHS, writes Rachel Power, Chief Executive at the Patients Association, in this HSJ article.

In responding at scale and pace to coronavirus – discharging patients, cancelling operations, changing how patients access services – the NHS avoided becoming overwhelmed. However, changes were delivered without allowing the patients affected a say. Given the emergency, that was probably necessary and people were largely supportive. But as the NHS looks ahead to what the “new normal” might be, if its recent experience has given it a taste for bold, clinically led change, then the NHS needs to think again.