A healthy respect for customer interaction

Clearly intended for those responsible for training tomorrow's nurses, this succinct book describes and explores the role that patients, users and consumers might play in all aspects of nurse education, including policy development, curriculum design, the development of strategic approaches and the practicalities of involving patients. Many educators will recognise, through their own clinical experiences, the huge amount learnt from their interactions with patients. It is, after all, these individuals who possess an unrivalled wealth of expertise about health and illness. Tony Warne and Sue McAndrew have taken up the challenge of trying to demonstrate how this patient expertise might be tapped to strengthen current nurse training and, ultimately, the provision of healthcare.

The multiple benefits of involving patients in all aspects of healthcare are now widely acknowledged but this involvement is frequently unstructured, with the result that, in many instances, the relationship between healthcare professionals and patients has changed little. This book challenges nurse educators to take a more proactive approach to patient involvement.

The first part of the book (chapters one to four) focuses on current policy, including the involvement of patients in healthcare planning and commissioning, the delivery of services and the education of nurses. The multiple authors also take the opportunity to explore the underpinning philosophical debate relating to the nature of expertise.

The second part (chapters five to eight) offers examples of practical applications of patient involvement in the provision of healthcare and nurse education. Most interestingly, John Costello and Maria Horne (chapter five) explore the involvement of patients in classroom teaching.

The final chapter (nine) provides a résumé, helping the reader to make sense of the examples of good practice presented and summarises the challenges identified. This chapter also emphasises the key point of this book, which is that healthcare professionals need to learn how to listen to patients. This is as important a skill to acquire as any technical expertise acquired while learning to be a nurse.

The book is a valuable resource for all involved in providing learning opportunities for nursing students and other healthcare professionals. The involvement of patients in healthcare and nurse education has now become so integral to all aspects of healthcare that all those involved in the provision of nurse education would benefit from reading this book.

Leslie Gelling is senior research fellow, Institute of Health and Social Care, Anglia Ruskin University.