How you will be supported
HCT staff will ask your consent before any care and treatment is provided. You are entitled to have any information provided in the way that you need and be supported to make your own decision. If you have any communication needs, let your clinician know how best to support you. You may bring along someone to support you during your appointment.
Shared decision making
Shared decision making is about helping all patients make informed choices about their health care, by discussing:
- What their choices are
- What is good or bad about each choice
- What support is available to help them make a decision that is right for them
In shared decision making we want you to know we are listening to you and take time to understand what you want - rather than what we think you want.
Mental Capacity Act
All HCT Clinical staff are trained to understand and apply the principles of the Mental Capacity Act (2005). Patients are provided information and supported to make their own decisions about their care regardless of a diagnosis. Where the patient is unable to make their own decision, they and their family or carers are involved in the decision making process to consider all available options and make a best interest decision.
Advanced care planning
Advance care planning offers people the opportunity to plan their future care and support, including medical treatment, while they have the capacity to do so. Not everyone will want to make an advance care plan ( ACP), but it may be especially relevant for people at risk of losing mental capacity - for example, through a progressive illness like dementia. The approach used is based on individual choice so it’s important to have these conversations early as possible.
Talking about the end of someone’s life can be difficult and family members may not want to discuss this. However, to get the care right for someone at the end of their life, whenever that may come, we need to plan.
There are many examples of Advance Care Plans and in East & North Hertfordshire the Recommended Summary Plan for Emergency Care and Treatment (ReSPECT) Tool is in use. This is a form that records conversations with a patient on Advance Care Planning, Treatment Escalation Plans and Do Not Attempt Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (DNACPR) in one place.
LeDeR
LeDeR stands for Learning from the Lives and Deaths of autistic people and people with learning disabilities.
HCT are always looking to improve the services we provide for autistic people and people with learning disabilities and one way we do this is by being active members of the Hertfordshire LeDeR review panel.
STOMP/STAMP
HCT are committed to STOMP (Stopping over medication of people with a learning disability and autistic people) and STAMP (Supporting treatment and appropriate medication in paediatrics).
STOMP and STAMP are about making sure people with a learning disability, autism, or both are only prescribed the right medication, at the right time and for the right reason.
You can speak to the services you see in HCT about STOMP and STAMP.
You can also read more about STOMP and STAMP here:
Easy read leaflets
Safeguarding
Our Trust, as with all other NHS bodies, has a statutory duty to ensure that we make arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people, to protect adults at risk from abuse or the risk of abuse and support the Home Office Counter Terrorism strategy CONTEST, which includes a specific focus on
PREVENT (preventing violent extremism/radicalisation).
