Professor Michael Calnan presents 'Right Place - Wrong Patient'
How do acute hospitals provide dignified care for older people?
Location: The Auditorium, UCS Waterfront Building, Ipswich
Date: 7 December 2011
Time: 5.30pm - 7.30pm
Older age is one stage of the life course where dignity is threatened due to the vulnerability created by increased incapacity, frailty and cognitive decline in combination with a lack of social and economic resources.
Evidence suggests that it is in contact with health and welfare services where dignity is most threatened in terms of threats to identity and autonomy. This lecture presents findings from a recent study which explored the experiences of older people in acute NHS trusts in relation to dignified care, and identified the organisational, occupational and cultural factors that affect dignified care. These factors were examined through an ethnography of four acute hospital trusts in England and Wales, which involved interviews with older people recently discharged from hospital, their relatives/informal carers, trust managers, practitioners and other staff, complemented by evidence from non-participant observation.
‘Right Place – Wrong Patient!’ refers to the beliefs of staff that the acute hospital is not the ‘right place’ for older people.
Profile
Professor Michael Calnan
Michael Calnan is Professor of Medical Sociology, School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research at the University of Kent and Visiting Professor of Sociology at UCS.
He is a medical sociologist and has worked in health policy and health services research and training for over twenty years. He has published extensively on a wide range of health-related topics. Recent books include Trust Matters in Health Care (2008) and The New Sociology of the Health Service (2009).
His current research interests include the study of trust relations in health care and the study of dignity, ageing and health care. He has conducted ESRC funded studies on trust and mental healthcare and on risk and uncertainty in NICE decision making. He is currently involved in several national studies exploring dignity and the provision of health and social care for older people.