Patient engagement – we need to live it, not talk it

Patient engagement – we need to live it, not talk it

Patient engagement is much talked about. Thankfully. However, casting my mind back 20 years when organising The King’s Fund’s Promoting Patient Choice conference, I recall having no difficulty in finding two doctors to get up in front of the 300+ audience and argue that ‘patients should do what they’re told’.

Some healthcare professionals may still think and act like that, but few, if any, would now get up on a stage to proclaim it in public. I’d suggest that’s quite a far way to come in 20 years in terms of reversing medical paternalism.

But it’s not far enough.

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