The Patients Association is a lobby group operating in the UK that aims to improve patients' experience of health care. It became a registered charity in 1991. Its current campaigns include:
- General practitioner (GP) services
- Organ donation
- Care of older people
- Healthcare associated infections
- Dentistry
- Trust in medicines
- Patients rights
- Mixed sex wards
The Patients Association runs a helpline for patients and relatives on all non-clinical matters relating to the NHS or Private healthcare. In particular it can provide advice on the NHS complaints process, access to medical records, living wills and patients rights. Its number is 08456 08 44 55.
It receives most of its funding from individual and corporate membership, with its corporate members including various pharmaceutical, insurance, and private medical firms. It receives a smaller amount of funding through donations from patients, the public, and grant giving charitable organisations.
Read more about Patients Association: External Links
Famous quotes containing the words patients and/or association:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“With all their faults, trade-unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed. They have done more for decency, for honesty, for education, for the betterment of the race, for the developing of character in man, than any other association of men.”
—Clarence Darrow (1857–1938)