Advocacy In Health Care

This text discusses and evaluates the two main approaches to advocacy: empowering the patients with information; and endorsing their needs by speaking out on their behalf. It aims to offer a research-based model which practitioners can use in their study or in everyday practice. To maintain the correct balance between patient choice and patient protection, all health care practitioners must draw on their own knowledge and training. Patients often feel they have been badly informed, or have been deprived of the power to make decisions, even though the practitioner was "acting in the patient's best interests". This book discusses and evaluates the two main approaches to advocacy: empowering the patients with information, and endorsing their needs by speaking out on their behalf. It is an accessible yet authoritative analysis of the nature of advocacy in the health care professions, and puts forward a research-based model which practitioners can use in their study or in everyday Advocacy in Health Care presents a research-based framework for advocacy that can be used as a guide to everyday clinical practice. It discusses how to speak out on behalf of patients and clients as well as how to empower them to speak out for themselves. The main themes are illustrated with case-study examples from general hospitals and community settings, as well as from the fields of learning disabilities and mental health. This book will appeal to students, qualified professionals and independent advocates working with patients and clients within the health-care system, including nurses, doctors, social workers and those in professions allied to medicine.