Guidelines, guidelines everywhere…

NICE guidelines on ‘Bipolar Disorder in Adults’ regarding the role of families and carers state:

“Quality standards recognise the important role families and carers have in supporting adults with bipolar disorder. If appropriate, health and social care practitioners should ensure that family members and carers are involved in the decision‑making process about investigations, treatment and care.”

“Why is it that some psychiatrists sometimes don’t fully appreciate the views of carers and involve them in the care of a patient when NICE guidelines clearly state that it should be otherwise?” I asked a senior psychiatrist casually during a recent conversation. “Traditionally” he said, “doctors were sons and daughters of doctors, their friends and spouses were often doctors and those were the people they spoke with. Carers didn’t fit into that box. It’s a cultural thing, still lingering. Hardest thing to change – a mindset.”

India gets criticised for its caste system. In other countries it exists in other forms – the power dynamic between different groups of people in different strata of society. As the Grenfell tragedy unfolds, I see how the management didn’t  take the resident’s concerns seriously. What is the nature of Tenant-Management relationship? Who is disadvantaged?

Any number of guidelines cannot change deep-rooted, unconscious biases. Only humanity can.

Mrs May visited the site but couldn’t speak with the residents for ‘security’ reasons and because she is very tired after her recent election campaign. Being with them would have taken compassion. And humanity. I wonder if this was a Mayfair tower wether she would have felt more secure and less tired.