Recently I spent some time with a student paramedic called Pete who had come to our ward to gain a better understanding of dementia.During the course of the day, he explained the difficulty he encounters on a daily basis when transporting people from nursing home or mental health unit, to general hospital.
He was given the usual paperwork of prescription drugs, recent physical observations and appointment details, but no real information about the person.
Pete told me that this often made the journey to hospital more stressful than it needed to be, and as there is an increasing number of assaults on ambulance staff, I thought it might be a good idea to provide some basic but important information to assist this transfer to run more smoothly.
Using #Hello my name is .... has proved very effective for NHS staff, so why not adopt it for patients too ?
I believe this small information leaflet would be immediately recognisable and would act as a valuable introduction for any patient who is unable to provide the information themselves.
Simply complete the details and hand it to the transporting staff, who can then pass it over to the receiving department to continue a person centred approach.
I would be interested to see if others agree....