What makes it difficult for patients to ask for help in hospital?

Failures in fundamental care of hospital patients can have serious consequences, including patients dying unnecessarily. NHS policy and nursing theory emphasise shared decision making by staff and patients. However they do not consider what prevents nurses providing care as they would wish, nor the difficulties patients can face in alerting staff to missed care. Researchers from the University of Southampton interviewed 20 patients and six focus group members about their experiences of involvement in fundamental care decisions in hospitals, including whether they raised missed care with staff and if not, why not. This evidence brief presents our findings, taken from our recent paper [1].