Hello, my name is...’ NHS ‘patient-friendly’ badges - with pronouns

[Pronoun]

My manager is getting us new name badges for NHS work. The ‘hello, my name is’ campaign is meant to be for the benefit of patients; some are marketed as being specifically dementia-friendly.

I was surprised to see that there is the option to include pronouns on the badges. As these are meant to be for patient benefit, I feel a bit uncomfortable with these. My feeling is that people just want to know your name, to have a proper, friendly introduction, and to be treated as a person, so they don’t feel like an anonymous ‘case,’ or struggle to know who has been looking after them. I feel these pronoun badges run the risk of making interactions about the HCP rather than centring the patient. Am I wrong to feel this way?

I'm a non binary NHS worker and I find it pretty stressful to have to ask 20 different colleagues every day to use my preferred they/them pronouns.

I am astonished anyone can read the thread and still be this self obsessed. If you put a badge on with they on it, 20 colleagues a day won't be encouraged to use it, they will be like people here, encouraged to talk about your utter selfishness.

It's ridiculous. Are patients going to be accused of hate speech when they don't remember that the bearded man who attended to them had she/her on their badge?

Pronouns are what other people use for you, not what you imagine yourself to be.

Yeah definitely don't join in with it. I would roll my eyes if my doctor or nurse had their pronouns on a badge for me. Too much focus on gender isn't good for women either. Unconscious bias and all that.

Unfortunately a terrible tragic accident befell my lovely badge proclaiming my name on the day it was bestowed on me by my manager. It broke very badly under someone’s shoe, it was beyond repair.

What a pity.

Reading the plopper's comment I fondly remembered a Twitter account I used to follow that asked the British public if they would correct others if they got your name wrong. The non-representative poll had tens of thousands of people say no, with thousands replying that they wouldn't want to impose.

The stories included a doctor who had worked in the same hospital for a decade and all her colleagues were getting her name wrong. All of the time. Patients, too. And she just didn't feel it was appropriate to make a fuss.

I wonder what those people make of the pronoun policing?

Found it!

Very British Problems, back in 2016.

mobile.twitter.com/SoVeryBritish/status/701115264319021057

FFS. Having to give a shit about pronouns when you're sick? I don't care about them when I'm well.

Patients would have to read the badge, remember what is said and use it when that person was not in the room. The trust manager needs to read up on dementia...

it said, not is said

@Yolande7

Patients would have to read the badge, remember what is said and use it when that person was not in the room. The trust manager needs to read up on dementia...

I don’t have dementia. If I was in hospital and I was being nursed by a female nurse, and someone asked where my nurse was, I would reply “she’s over there” regardless of what pronoun she had on her badge because I will not be complicit in bullshit gender ideology, I won’t go along with the lie that pronouns are a reflection of a persons feelings rather than a descriptor of a person’s sex, and I won’t have my language controlled by other people in a McCarthy-esque manner.

If a person with pronouns on their badge want to control how I speak about them when they aren’t there, the pronouns I used are likely to be the least offensive words I use.

Our name badge is sewn into our uniform for H&S reasons, and in all the years I have been a nurse, none of the patients have even bothered reading my name, but simply call me "Nurse" instead!

@Yolande7

Patients would have to read the badge, remember what is said and use it when that person was not in the room. The trust manager needs to read up on dementia...

And poor eyesight, especially since patients may not have their glasses on or contacts in.

With my eyesight I’d need to have my nose to their chest to read the badge. Even then - I’m in hospital - I’m sick/in pain/on drugs so excuse me if I can’t add one more piece of information into my brain as I contemplate eternity.

Patients shouldn't be required to validate healthcare staff. FFS.

(I’m obviously not in hospital...just imagining). When my parents were in hospital I found the staff mostly very attentive and lovely. Not self obsessed.

Picked up below how it would help patients not assume pronouns

There are so many things I would like people not to assume about me...no I don't like shopping, yes I am good at maths, no I don't appreciate being cat called....you get the gist

The focus on pronouns seems rather odd.superficial. Are they saying all is ok as long as you make the right set of gendered assumptions?

If you find something stressful in your everyday interactions, it's always worth pondering whether it's not them but you.

@ImaSababa

I'm a non binary NHS worker and I find it pretty stressful to have to ask 20 different colleagues every day to use my preferred they/them pronouns

Absolutely pathetic. Grow the fuck up.

I have a name that people often mix with another. I don’t think people refer to me personally 20 times a day, however I answer to my ‘other’ name (usually, unless someone’s is being rude then I pretend I think they are addressing someone else).

I don’t cry about it for goodness sake.

Instructing patients that they must refer to you using a particular pronoun (and let's face it, the only people this will matter to are likely to be of one sex and want to be referred to as a member of the opposite sex) is fundamentally wrong. Everything the NHS does should be about the patient.

If staff are to be required to announce personal information about themselves, let's go the whole hog:

My name is Jane Doe
My age is 43
My religion is Hindu
My sex is female
I am bisexual
I have a long term condition which requires adjustments to be made
I am married
I haven't been pregnant for 7 years
I have not had gender reassignment but who knows what might happen in the future

There, that should fit nicely on a badge. Of absolutely no relevance of benefit to the patient, but that's not what really matters here is it.

I'm a non binary NHS worker and I find it pretty stressful to have to ask 20 different colleagues every day to use my preferred they/them pronouns.

I thought people took up jobs in healthcare because they wanted to work and help people not demand poorly patients subscribe to an ideology.
If I think back to my times in hospital, in pain, ill and vulnerable, I don’t remember giving a toss about someone’s fucking pronouns or their sodding badge.

I assumed people who work in healthcare had a gcse in biology at least. It’s not a kit you, dear, it’s about the patient.

Do all Patients now have to wear a link/blue/white sticker too and demand correct address?

That poster did say 'colleagues' rather than 'patients'.

But expecting HCPs to be attentive to someone wishing to impose pronouns other than those matching their sex, rather than the needs of the patients is self-indulgent. (And if anyone working in a hospital thinks sex isn't binary they maybe need a refresher human biology course)

I'm a non binary NHS worker and I find it pretty stressful to have to ask 20 different colleagues every day to use my preferred they/them pronouns.

So you work with 100 different people each week?

And, if you are working with them, surely they speak to you using your name, or 'you'?