Your doctor
■ Be treated fairly
■ Dignity and independence
■ Receive good care and support that suits their needs
■ Be told things in a way they understand (this includes having access to a translator for patients for whom English isn’t their first language.)
■ Be told everything they need to know about their care and support
■ Make choices about their care and support
■ Have support (this includes taking your own support person, or wha¯ nau member with you to an appointment.)
■ Decide if they want to be part of training, teaching or research
■ Make a complaint
As well as this, patients should be able to expect that the doctor they are seeing will adhere to the Principles of Ethical Behaviour – in brief, some of the things these principles cover include:
■ Ensuring the patient’s health and wellbeing is the first priority
■ Respecting the rights, autonomy and freedom of choice of the patient
■ Avoiding any exploitation of patients
■ Practising medicine to the best of their ability, with moral integrity, compassion and respect
■ Protecting the patient’s private information throughout their lifetime and following death (that is, maintaining confidentiality at all times about a patient’s health matters, unless there is a reason to do otherwise.)
■ Striving to improve their knowledge and skills so they can offer their patients the best care
■ Recognising their limitations and the special skills of others (for example, practising within their scope and referring or discussing with others for a second opinion when needed). Although it is important we all understand that there are frameworks for a patient’s rights and doctor’s behaviour (and that breaches of those are not acceptable), I’m not imagining that patients will refer to these during or after each doctor’s visit. But I encourage you to think about the medical care you receive and, if you are unhappy about any aspect of the service or care, talk to your doctor or someone in their practice.
Most doctors will welcome this feedback – hearing about the things that aren’t working well for our patients is an opportunity to improve the standard of our service, or to discover a gap in our knowledge or skill set.
If this seems too daunting to do face-to-face, every practice will have a ‘‘complaints process’’ advertised (usually on its website), with the contact details of the person who deals with any issues or concerns.
The practice will then contact you within a few working days with their response and, often, you will be invited to talk to them about things in more detail and hopefully hear about the steps that can be put in place to avoid this happening again.
If you feel uncomfortable doing this on your own, take a friend or relative with you as a support person, or contact the Health and Disability Advocacy service on 0800 555 050, which can talk about your options.
For more information about your rights as a patient, visit the Health and Disability Commissioner’s website hdc.org.nz