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This article
appeared in the Spring 2004 edition of Short
Words, the newsletter of Tim Albert Training.
It was written by Tim Albert. Kelsey T, Are you talking to me? HSJ 18 October 2003, pp18-19
A reader comments... |
NHS managers need a 'linguistic revolution'
NHS managers need to think carefully about the language they use - and as a starting point they should get rid of the word 'patient', according to Tim Kelsey, chief executive of Dr Foster. He writes in the Health Service Journal: 'The plan is to save the service for future generations by making the patient the focus of its attention and putting them at the heart of the decision-making process'. But he argues that the first step is to replace the word 'patient' with 'people'. 'The language of the patient is the language of the top-down monolithic institution; it is a language that cannot embrace the simple and vital fact that we are all different and individual. ''The patient will become at the centre of the NHS only if people are spoken to as people and as individuals. For the NHS to prosper, it requires nothing less than a linguistic revolution'. Kelsey continues that the real problem lies with 'senior and middle ranking managers who are rarely, if ever, exposed to the real people that trudge in and out of GP surgeries. They need special language training'. In particular this means listening to other people, he concludes. 'So, managers, get down to your nearest language lab - and start thinking about how you should be talking to your communities,' he writes. 'I think it should be mandatory for a PCT chief executive to spend at least one day a week on the front line interacting with people who use the NHS - but the first thing you have to do in order to speak somebody else's language is to listen to it'.
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