{"id":37215,"date":"2016-08-16T10:12:17","date_gmt":"2016-08-16T09:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=37215"},"modified":"2016-08-17T14:41:28","modified_gmt":"2016-08-17T13:41:28","slug":"narinder-kapur-name-badges-and-job-titles-to-keep-kate-grangers-legacy-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2016\/08\/16\/narinder-kapur-name-badges-and-job-titles-to-keep-kate-grangers-legacy-alive\/","title":{"rendered":"Narinder Kapur: Name badges and job titles to keep Kate Granger’s legacy alive"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"0\"The campaign by the late Kate Granger<\/a> helped to raise the profile of staff introducing themselves to patients by saying their name.\u00a0Words used in healthcare matter.\u00a0Communication lapses are one of the major sources of error in patient safety. Confusing drug labels can be fatal. Yet we often fail at the simplest level of using names and titles correctly.<\/p>\n

\"F1.medium\"This was brought home to Kate Granger (pictured\u00a0right) when the doctor who told her that\u00a0her cancer had spread apparently did not introduce himself and did not even look at her. Thus began Kate Granger\u2019s “#hellomynameis<\/strong>\u00a0<\/i><\/em>campaign, which should continue after her death.\u00a0[1]<\/p>\n

Patients (and staff) generally want to know three things when they meet healthcare professionals\u2014their name, their job, and their seniority.<\/p>\n

Yet they are often faced with differing titles and grades across differing specialties, which at best can result in confusion and at worst in misidentification and adverse consequences for patient safety. It is clear that patients and some staff can get confused<\/a> by names and badges that are used<\/a>. [2-3]<\/p>\n

Just as Agenda for Change<\/a> brought uniformity to salary bands across a number of disciplines in the NHS, there is a need for a similar uniformity in titles. The term “consultant” is now widely used in healthcare, with the title of “nurse consultants<\/a>” being prevalent since at least the 1990s.\u00a0[4]<\/span><\/p>\n

Healthcare staff are usually at four levels of knowledge, skills, and experience\u2014newly qualified, several years into training, at an advanced level of training, and in an established senior post. The debate was triggered<\/a> again last week when the president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh called for the introduction of a new term to describe doctors in training rather than “junior” or “trainee” doctors.\u00a0 I propose the following terms be used for doctors, giving as an example the specialty of orthopaedics, with one line for the name and two lines for the title:<\/p>\n