"When decisions are made without the people affected – they are usually the wrong decisions." Mandy Rudczenko, Co-Chair, Winter planning, Patient and Carer Reference Group
It’s critically important that we work with patients and members of the public. This partnership helps ensure our work make sense and drives our focus to topics people really care about. Giving public and patient views status in our own work also demonstrates the importance of others including a greater diversity of voices in theirs.
Some might say that the middle of a global pandemic isn’t the best time to gather reflections on your work from thousands of people across the UK and beyond. We say that during a global pandemic, ensuring that medical science is guided by the priorities and concerns of the public is more important than ever. We did what we could in the time we had – the need for a rapid response shouldn’t be a reason for not including public and patient voices. Read on for a countdown of the top five times we’ve worked with patients and members of the public this year…
1. Life Support
With daily reminders of the numbers of people dying from COVID-19, there is no doubt that the pandemic has made conversations about death and dying even more important. Life Support was developed to replace the many face to face events that were planned to run across the country this year as part of our The Departure Lounge project with The Liminal Space. It aims to get people talking about dying, and what it means to die well – with our surveys finding that six in ten people felt they knew little or nothing about the final hours of life. Find out more at www.life-support.uk