Understanding and achieving person-centred care in an acute medical ward setting.

Person-centred care is a concept often referred to in healthcare. However, it is unclear how it applies to everyday clinical practice. This qualitative study aimed to explore how the concept was understood and achieved in an acute medical ward setting in order to identify potential areas for development related to research, education and practice. The research design was influenced by an interpretive approach with the aim of accessing the meanings that participants assigned to the phenomenon of person-centred care and making this evident to others. A purposive sampling strategy identified 21 participants. These consisted of seven registered nurses, four student nurses, three healthcare support workers, three allied health professionals, two professional development co-ordinators and two nursing lecturers, who all took part in either individual or paired semi-structured interviews. Gathering data from this range of practitioners adds new perspectives to the body of knowledge on person-centred care. Data were analysed using Framework Analysis, which resulted in a model of person-centred care being developed iteratively as a result of data analysis, a priori knowledge of the researcher and the findings of the literature review. The study findings emphasise that all elements of the model; organisational culture, the philosophy of the care environment, characteristics of relationships, personal qualities of staff and principles of person-centred care interlink with each other to indicate what needs to be in place for person-centred care to be achieved. The model also provides a possible structure to inform the planning of future development within education and practice.The study outcomes identify potential areas for development within research, education and practice These include, working towards a shared vision of person-centred care in the study setting by using work based activities in order to identify ongoing development needs; the testing and evaluation of the use of the model of person-centred care in practice and education and the investigation of the feasibility of conducting a health economic study to explore the cost-benefit of providing person-centred care in acute care settings.