Ensuring the best care and treatment in hospital
If your relative has been admitted to hospital, you will probably want to know what services the hospital can offer your relative, and who is responsible for which aspects of the care and treatment programme. You can encourage the health professionals to actively involve you in the care and treatment of your relative, including sharing information that will be of benefit.
It may be that you would like to be involved in ward rounds, as it is at that meeting that information is exchanged by staff involved with the patient. this information is then used as the basis of your relative's treatment and you can contribute by sharing your knowledge of your relative.
You can also ask questions about types of and visiting arrangements so that you can help your relative adjust to their new, and possibly confusing environment.
You can also ask questions about types of and visiting arrangements so that you can help your relative adjust to their new, and possibly confusing environment.
A good first step is to find out the names of the consultant psychiatrist who is leading the medical team looking after your relative, as well as the name of the ward manager, as this can come in useful over time.
Potential difficulties
Conflict with staff can arise through misunderstandings about treatment and care. It is important that understandably high emotions be channeled as constructively as possible. It is usually better to explore any problems fully first by seeking any necessary explanations before expressing a complaint.
A common difficulty for family members is that professionals may deny them active involvement in decisions about their relative's care and treatment on grounds of confidentiality - An adult patient does have the right to refuse information to be passed to family members and symptoms of a mental illness (paranoia for example) may lead someone to doing this.
It is important to be assertive rather than aggressive if you are having problems negotiating your involvement with your relative's professional carers and to ensure that the questions that you are asking relate to specific points to which you require information and answers. It can sometimes be helpful in these circumstances to have with you someone who is less emotionally involved, in order to support you at meetings with the health professionals.
If problems arise that cant be solved through negotiation
The appropriate complaints procedure can be used but it is important to consider the relative's complaints realistically and act only upon those complaints that are neither trivial nor unsubstantiated. Complaints
A common difficulty for family members is that professionals may deny them active involvement in decisions about their relative's care and treatment on grounds of confidentiality - An adult patient does have the right to refuse information to be passed to family members and symptoms of a mental illness (paranoia for example) may lead someone to doing this.
It is important to be assertive rather than aggressive if you are having problems negotiating your involvement with your relative's professional carers and to ensure that the questions that you are asking relate to specific points to which you require information and answers. It can sometimes be helpful in these circumstances to have with you someone who is less emotionally involved, in order to support you at meetings with the health professionals.
If problems arise that cant be solved through negotiation
The appropriate complaints procedure can be used but it is important to consider the relative's complaints realistically and act only upon those complaints that are neither trivial nor unsubstantiated. Complaints
