Patients’ Voices Grow Louder in Great Britain

Extract

This is the second in a two-part series.

The British Association of Cancer United Patients (BACUP) will celebrate its 15th anniversary in October with a tribute to its founder. Vicky Clement Jones, M.D., who died from cancer in 1987, is said to have done more than any other single individual in Britain to promote patient empowerment. She vowed to “kick cancer out of the closet” and to end “the conspiracy of silence” affecting cancer patients and their families and friends.

American readers might not understand just what an ambitious undertaking this was. British patients used to be treated like children who were “seen and not heard.” They were denied clinical information as a matter of official policy; hospital notes were stamped “Not to be seen by the patient.” Pharmacists were instructed not to tell patients what drugs they had been prescribed.

Thanks to campaigners like Jones, old-style British paternalism is now being phased out in Britain in the name of new-style American consumerism and political correctness. New models are emerging—the “informed patient,” the “expert patient,” and the “doctor–patient partnership.”