A NEW champion of the rights of patients in Jersey could be established if a suggestion made to the Health and Community Services Advisory Board is implemented.
During the public questions that followed the board’s latest monthly meeting, Mary Venturini called on the department to appoint a person to whom the public could go with concerns, following the recent creation of a “freedom to speak up guardian” for staff within HCS.
“If you are a patient, you are in a very vulnerable position anyway. You don’t want to complain to your nurse and you don’t want to complain to your doctor because you might then not get quite the right treatment. There’s this fear all along the line that builds up.
“I think the patients and their families need somewhere that’s quite independent where they can go and know they will be listened to, and that their case will be acted on very quickly,” Ms Venturini said.
She added that this would help people concerned that they were not getting the right treatment, or being listened to by those within the health system. Her comments were backed up by another member of the public who related her own experiences of receiving a letter, the day before her operation, advising her to stop taking blood-thinning medicine the previous day. If she had not herself known, her operation would have been delayed, she told the board.
It was an example of the kind of issue that the public should be able to raise with an independent person to represent their interests, Ms Venturini said.
The Health Board’s acting chair, Carolyn Downs, asked for the subject of patient representation to be followed up at a future meeting, and there was further encouragement from Tom Hayhoe – whose appointment as the new chair was announced last week. He attended his first meeting as an observer but spoke briefly at the conclusion to emphasise the importance of keeping patients’ interests paramount.
