NHS service standard
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15. Support a culture of care
Caring is the core business of the NHS. NHS services should provide a positive experience of care or help NHS staff provide a caring service.
All services should make patients, the public and staff feel included, valued and supported and, as far as possible, involve people in their own care.
Why it's important
Digital services are not excluded from the NHS commitment to care and compassion. Small things make a difference when people are, for example, sick or stressed, grieving or dying.
We can improve people's experience of care by being inclusive and treating them with respect.
What you should do
Your team should be able to show that you:
- listen to and understand your users' personal, cultural, social and religious needs as well as their care needs
- are respectful and inclusive
- take users' fears and concerns seriously and think carefully about their context and circumstances
- where appropriate, involve people in decisions about their care and respect their right to choose - for example, to book an appointment with a female member of staff or to delay treatment
- balance helping users complete the task with an appropriate tone, reassurance, and clear explanations
- signpost to support to help people cope emotionally
- tell people what will happen next and, where appropriate, keep them informed and involved in the progress of their care and treatment
- use the most appropriate channels, including the phone or face to face contact
Guidance
NHS service manual
- Inclusive content
- the sections on considering the sensitivities around your questions and thinking of the form as a conversation in our forms guidance, How to write good questions for forms
See also service standard points:
- 4. Make the service simple to use
- 5. Make sure everyone can use the service
- 9. Respect and protect users' confidentiality and privacy
- 16. Make your service clinically safe
GOV.UK resources
This point is not included in the GOV.UK service standard, but there is some relevant guidance in the GOV.UK service manual.
Read more about this
- The sections on Kindness, respect and compassion, Involving people in decisions about their care, and Privacy and dignity in Key lines of enquiry for healthcare services (Care Quality Commission)
Help us improve this guidance
Share insights or feedback and take part in the discussion. We use GitHub as a collaboration space. All the information on it is open to the public.
If you've gone through a service assessment or peer review, we're especially interested to hear from you.
Read more about how to feedback or share insights.
If you have any questions, get in touch with the service manual team.
Updated: July 2021