How To Be A Better Health Advocate For Yourself

The NHS is a crowning achievement of modern British society, and has saved countless lives in its relatively short existence as a publicly-available, free-to-use social good. However, its recent history has been pockmarked by tragedies, from rising waiting times to full beds and the disastrous unfolding of the infected blood scandal.

The NHS is worth saving, and work is underway to do just that. But as patients in the present continue to suffer from medical mismanagement, avoidable healthcare outcomes and life-altering impacts, the importance of self-advocacy grows ever more important. What does this mean for you, and how can you be a better advocate for your own health?

What is Self-Advocacy?

Self-advocacy is simply the act of taking a more active participating role in your own healthcare journey. Doctors and other medical professionals treat patients from a position of knowledge and authority, which can create a one-sided relationship patients are happy to acquiesce to. The combination of this knowledge gap and the duty of care that medical professionals accept over patients results in a climate of deference.

This deference can be dangerous. Complacent or incorrect medical practitioners can misinterpret a symptom or complaint, and the patient can defer to their judgement – leading to a potentially irreversible worsening of their condition. Cancer misdiagnosis claims are predicated on this very outcome, as preventable progression of the disease can incur serious living costs, emotional damage and more besides.

What Can Happen If You Don’t Self-Advocate?

Indeed, this leads on to the potential difficulties that can arise in patients that do not advocate for their own care. Medical malpractice is by no means a commonality in the NHS, nor is the existence of bad actors in the NHS. However, the NHS is a dysfunctional organisation with issues relating to funding and management – issues which trickle down into primary and hospital care.

If you don’t self-advocate, you can find yourself at the whim of a system not working at its best. Self-advocacy, on the most basic of levels, is ensuring your medical concerns are heard properly; not speaking up when you need to be heard can allow you to slip through the cracks, as so many have been unfortunate enough to do in Accident and Emergency departments in recent months.

Practical Tips And Strategies

So, what exactly can you do to become a better self-advocate? Research is a great starting point, though no research should ever be undertaken in a bid to trump your medical teams. Understanding the expertise and judgement of your doctors is vital, but you do reserve the right to interrogate their choices (and especially so if you believe yourself to be at risk of something like cancer).

Speaking out is one thing, but patience is another. Self-advocacy also means weighing up your medical decisions carefully, with knowledge and logic on your side. Rather than going with the flow, don’t be afraid to pause and really interrogate your healthcare options.