Christopher gives talks about what meaning trust and transparency has in relation to care and the Real Care Deal. He shares the story of a senior nurse with mobility issues who needed to transition from using a frame to a hoist for safety reasons. Despite the nurse’s long-standing relationships with her GP, district nurse, and OT, none of them were able to tell her about the needed change. After a difficult conversation Chris received gratitude from the nurse’s daughter for addressing the tough decision. Later, the nurse herself apologised for her initial reaction and appreciated the speaker’s honesty. This story highlights the importance of difficult but necessary transparency in care decisions.

Transcript:

Tell me what trust and transparency means to you in the context of the Real Care Deal?

What, it means to me is, the job I do, I have to make difficult decisions.

I’ll give you an example.

There was a lady, she spent 36 years as a senior sister in A&E. So she’s got lots of experience. She finds herself now with, a breathing situation and a mobility situation where her knees, when she stands, can’t support her. So what do we do? She has a frame and she can walk a few steps to the loo next door. So that’s been going on for nearly a year, but it come to the point where it became a danger to to her and it became a danger to the carers.

So in this particular lady’s case, she knew her GP for 38 years. She knew the district nurse who she did training with. She’s known her for over 15 years. She knew the Occupational Therapist  that she’d been dealing with for 13 years. She’s got a daughter and family, and the situation was going down and down and down. So when I went to see her, I said to her, I think we’ve come to the point where we’ve gotta stop you standing and using the frame, and we’ve gotta use the hoist.

Well, she had all she had full capacity and, but bearing in mind her experience and her life, she burst into tears and said she hated me and everything else. But I then found out as I was leaving,  that her daughter saw me out the house and she said, do you know what? Thank you so much.

She said, because none of us, all these people that I’ve listed, didn’t, couldn’t tell her. They, they just couldn’t bring their self to tell her that the time had come, we needed you to use a hoist. So she said, thank you so much. We didn’t know how to tell her or what to say or anything else. So that’s a difficult moment.

And I’d had a good relationship with her ’cause I’d been and done reviews. I knew her really well. We got on fine and she knew it was her care plan the way she wanted it to be. But now someone’s come along and they stop that. But what I said to her was, it’s only that particular element because there’s a danger that becomes unmanageable.

And everyone knew it. All these professional people knew it, but no one could tell her. So I left. Anyway,  I got home and she’s of people have my phone number,  so she rang me and it was five past nine at night and I picked up the phone. I always answer the phone the same way. Hi, Chris Collins, how can I help?

And she said, I owe you an apology. That’s the first words out of her mouth. So I said, hi. I said, how are you? I said, difficult day today, wasn’t it? So she went, yeah, she said, and I said, I hated you, but I owe you an apology. She said, I don’t hate you. She said, and I realize now I’ve reflected on it that you are right.

She said, what’s annoyed me more than ever is all the people I’ve known for years couldn’t bring their selves to be honest with me.

Amazing.