Trust Matters In Health Care

In the UK health service trust has traditionally played an important part in the relationships between its three key actors: the state, health care practitioners, and patients and the public. However, in recent years the micro relationship between patient and health care practitioner and the macro environment in which these relationships operate have been subject to considerable change as the NHS has been modernised. Today, patients are expected to play a more active role, both in self-managing their illness and in patient choice of provider.Has increasing patient self-management changed trust relations with health professionals, potentially requiring a more equal relationship based on mutual trust? Has patient choice made institutional trust and the extent to which patients and referring clinicians trust particular health care organisations a greater priority? Can performance data regarding waiting times and clinical outcomes be trusted by practitioners and patients, and how do they affect institutional trust? These questions are the focus of this unique book which provides a detailed theoretical, empirical and policy analysis of the nature, salience and impact of trust on relations between patients, clinicians, and health service managers. By drawing on empirical research which for the first time has explored how trust operates across the spectrum of relationships found in the 'new NHS', its analysis will be of interest to policy makers, health care practitioners and health service managers.