It’s all about the patients, it’s not about the patients.

As 2023 kicks off, I’m unravelling some thinking I’ve been doing around why I’m doing this work. My why, why this work matters. I’ve had these big lofty thoughts about changing the way it feels to work in healthcare because I listen to stories that people share and I want it to be better and I know it can be better. 

The work I’ve been doing with a coach and a book writing group  (yes you heard that right a book writing group, more on that later), is looking beyond my sweeping statement and the big picture and understanding why this matters to me. Why this really matters. 

Changing the way it feels to work in healthcare is a good idea. We have huge recruitment and retention issues, increasing demand and who knows what is around the corner. Staff are suffering burnout and the care patients receive is being affected.  For healthcare to work, we need people to want to work in healthcare. So it’s a good reason and a good purpose, for some people you see that eyes light up when I say the phrase but when I look a few layers deeper it’s not why I’m doing what I’m doing. 

I hear stories that people share about losing sleep with worry, stress and frustration about the quality of care and experience that is being delivered to their patients. That takes me a layer down. People are worried, they know care isn’t what it could or should be and they don’t know what to do about it. It’s about the patients, but it’s not about the patients. 

When I peeled back those layers further it got very personal for me and after 30 years of working in healthcare, it was going to be personal but I saw it was more about the personal experience of being on the receiving end of healthcare. I realised that that has been a constant theme throughout my life and it reached a peak when sitting alongside  Adam as he went through a diagnosis of cancer, chemotherapy and then radiotherapy treatment. 

I had heart surgery when I was 7 years old, I thought it was a great adventure but there are memories I have of that experience. It’s one of the strongest memories of my childhood. I recall not understanding the rules I was supposed to follow.

At 17 I was on a ship that sank.  Back in the late 80s,  mental health issues weren’t talked about as openly as they are now. The school tried its best, I remember being sent to see a psychiatrist, but we were told (or maybe I told myself) that this was about the compensation money that was to be decided. Besides, he got my story all wrong when I read the report. My mother had no idea what to do with me when on some days I didn’t want to go to school. My recovery from this event has been a deep-seated and rarely talked about reason that drives my approach as a people manager and why I willingly stepped outside my comfort zone to support an initiative with the Mental Health Foundation about how we talk about mental health issues at work. 

And then in 2019, I suffered a concussion following a fall and that experience, from the care within the hospital, the support in and out of work and the management of my recovery really drove home that idea of care being something you receive as much as what you give. We believe we deliver great care, do we check and enable people to say if it felt like they were being cared for? I was surprised by how little I felt cared for when what I say was people very well intentionally doing things to show care.  It’s very personal but when we feel vulnerable, scared and alone, it becomes personal very quickly. 

When prompted with ‘why this really really matters’ the image that came to mind was when Adam was in the hospital. He’d got a temperature, was struggling to breathe and looked and felt like crap. I had to take him to ED, it was COVID times so we were isolated. I kept thinking how grateful I was that I could stay because there was no way I was leaving him. I was scared, he we really sick. No, it wasn’t COVID, he wasn’t neutropenic and his numbers were never that terrible but for him, to me, he was really sick and I was really worried and I was too scared to leave the hospital. I was also too scared when I saw him start twitching and I knew his temperature was going back up,  I was too scared to go and say anything. I know that’s not okay and if I feel like having worked in the system for 30 years, holding a senior role and knowing that people deteriorate suddenly and yet I froze. I didn’t feel safe to ask, the micro-behaviours that had been displayed since we arrived told me to stay quiet, stay in the room, don’t put my hand up. I did walk up and say something. Quietly, apologetically. It was not met with compassion, it was robotic. Later when I was too tired to stay, a friend came and stayed with Adam, I was still too scared to leave him alone. It was as much about the little things as the fear of not noticing any deterioration. It was no pillow or blanket on the trolley, it was no water to drink, and it was no doctor coming to see him. 

So it’s all about the patients but it’s not about the patients.

We know that any patient or customer experience and care is directly correlated to staff care and experience. The type of care you want your loved one to receive doesn’t get delivered unless the staff feel cared for, valued, acknowledged and supported.  Whatever service industry you are in the experience of the people receiving what you are delivering depends on the experience of the staff that are working in your service. It’s not about the patients but all about the patients, because people who work in healthcare do what they do, for patients, whatever role you have, you have an impact on the care and experience of patients. It’s all about them, it’s all about you because when you feel you belong, you feel heard, valued, appreciated and acknowledged then you’ll be better equipped to deliver the care that makes people feel connected and safe.

I know that an incredible amount of great care is delivered every day, and I know that people go out of their way to make a difference for patients and whānau. I know miraculous things occur,  safe procedures are performed and people leave feeling so much better than when they entered a hospital or healthcare system. And. We have staff leaving, staff vacancies, burnout and increasing demand. This does and will continue to impact the care and experience for staff, patients and whānau.

Why do I do what I do? When Adam gets sick again, and I know that day will come, I can leave him in the hospital without fear and dread. I can speak up easily and comfortably.  So that when you are at your most vulnerable and you need to feel compassion and connected care, that’s what you receive. When our most vulnerable, scared and disconnected people seek help, we can meet them where they are and they can know and feel that care.