Carers

1. Provide an open visiting policy.
Supporting your access to the hospital outside of normal visiting hours, to enable you to be with the person when they may be stressed, anxious, upset or lonely. This may include during mealtimes if the person you care for requires additional support to eat.

2. Keep you informed.
We will make sure that you are kept well informed of what we are doing or what is going to happen and respect you as experts in the person you care for.

3. Check in with you.
We will make sure that we consider your wellbeing and assist so that you can take a break to get something to eat, or you just need a little "you" time, alone. We recognise that as a carer you need to be cared for too

4. Let staff know you are a carer.
Having to constantly tell us that you are a carer can cause frustration and fatigue. To avoid this being challenged, we have Carers Cards please ask a member of staff for your Carers Card

Whittington Health’s Carers Charter applies to carers of all ages including young carers.

A Carer is anyone who cares, unpaid, for another person. This may be a family member, partner, or friend, who without this support, could not manage. This may include supporting them to attend appointments, helping them get around their home or assist with their shopping. Most of us at some point in our lives will become a carer; this may be for a short period or indefinitely. We appreciate in some cultures within our community, a family member will assume caring responsibilities, for example, for an elder in the family. The care they provide differs from carers who support in a professional capacity or through a voluntary organisation.

 

There may be times that, as staff we need to deliver necessary care or medical treatment to your family member, partner, friend or to another patient and it may not be appropriate for you to be present. This may include personal care an examination and as privacy and dignity of all our patients is paramount to the care we provide, on these occasions we ask that you respect the decision of our staff, who may ask you to leave whilst they provide this essential care.

 

We are committed to listening to you as carers and encourage you to share your experience with us.  There are a number of ways in which you can do this:

Patient Involvement Partners - We want to include carers in the planning and delivery of our services and welcome as much or as little time as you can offer.  You can sign up as a patient safety partner or get involved in quality improvement programmes or join another team where you can be the voice for carers engaging with our services.  

Volunteering - You can sign up as a volunteer, we have a number of volunteering opportunities available, such as mealtime assistants, ward befriender, guides and clerical volunteers. If you would like to know more, you can visit our webpage or contact our Patient Experience team where you can discuss opportunities available.

Patient Story to Trust Board- we are committed to hearing and listening to our patients through the use of stories.  The key to any story, whether challenging or one where we have received a compliment is that there is learning.  Patient Stories require that you attend our Trust Board in person, for more information please visit our Patient Stories page

Digital Living Library – Our digital living library, where patients, carers and their relatives can share their experience in a video, recorded by us.  These videos are then used internally for staff training.