Adam Sandell
Oxford University Press, £18.95, pp 283 
ISBN 0 19 262957 3
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Rating: ★★★
The welfare of patients is at centre of medical care, either at the level of delivering “technical” welfare (removing a gall bladder or prescribing antibiotics to an ill child with otitis media) or delivering “social” welfare (non-medical interventions to improve health). Such social interventions include pastoral and spiritual support and providing practical and financial advice to improve quality of life. The balance between the provision of these types of welfare varies enormously between specialties, between personalities and consulting styles, and between views of the role of doctors.
Many doctors regard the provision of social welfare as somebody else’s job, whether that of a social worker, the patient’s family or advocate, or a nurse. This may be due to a high level of specialism in the doctor’s role, arrogance, time pressures, or simply that others are readily available to take on these roles. More importantly, from medical school onwards doctors are not taught or encouraged to think in such ways. Even the most patient centred general practitioners still effectively run “sickness shops” according to a strict medical model, and non-medical welfare is rarely high on the agenda.
The latest in the Oxford “fit in your pocket” series shows the enormous scope for influencing patient welfare. The breadth and the depth of the material contained is staggering, and it has been meticulously put together in a user friendly format. The goldmine of material includes contact details for all manner of potentially useful organisations. Where else could you find the contact details for HM Inspector of Anatomy (to be contacted in the event of the death of a person who has bequeathed his or her body to medical science) alongside those for the Disabled Living Foundation (to be contacted for advice and information about equipment for disabled people) and the Plain English Campaign (for advice on the language used in patient letters and leaflets)? It makes me glad I’m not a social worker.
However, changes in legislation and benefits will make it out of date very quickly. While free updates are available via email and the web, it is hard to envisage the dual use of paper and web versions. Surely this is the type of information that we should be accessing only via the web, and from every ward and every consulting room.