The NHS Experience
The 'Snakes and Ladders' Guide for Patients and Professionals

The NHS Experience is an accessible and engaging guide for all those journeying through the NHS, whether as patients, carers or professionals. It draws on the experience of staff and families at Great Ormond Street Hospital to provide good practice guidance for both users and providers of health care.

Based on the successful Snakes and Ladders drama programme developed at Great Ormond Street Hospital, this unique book uses the story of Daniel, a fictional child with the life-limiting disease cystic fibrosis, to provide insight into the enormous challenges faced by patients, their families and the professionals involved in their care.

Asking difficult questions about how we can improve the NHS experience for everyone at the front line, Daniel?s story builds on information from a wealth of sources to highlight:

• the practical, ethical, resource and financial dilemmas integral to the NHS
• the vital issues around communication, trust, management of clinical errors, consent, shared decision-making and bereavement
• the realities of fragmented care, bed shortages, uncertain diagnoses, and complex and difficult treatment choices.

This is a book that should be read by all healthcare professionals and everyone who uses the NHS.

1. Beginnings 2. It’s Not What You Say: The diagnosis 3. Home and Away: Sharing Care 4. No Room at the Inn 5. Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word 6. Testing Times 7. Hard Graft: Transplant Decisions 8. Endings

Dr Hilary Cass is a consultant paediatrician, specialising in the care of children with disabilities. She is Associate Medical Director at Great Ormond Street Hospital, where she is in charge of medical and multi-professional education, and is also Professor of Children’s Healthcare Development at London South Bank University. She is passionate about helping the next generation of healthcare professionals to provide better patient-centred care.