Privacy

'Respect people's right to privacy' is the sixth point of the dignity challenge. As with dignity, privacy is open to interpretation and means different things to different people. To respect people's privacy, services must be personalised as much as possible. However, some more general rules around privacy might be:

• Personal space for receiving visitors in hospital or residential care should be available and accessible when needed
• Staff should be sensitive to matters of gender, culture or religion when undertaking nursing or personal care tasks and basic manners should be fully respected
• Hospital staff should be careful about how and where they impart confidential or sensitive information to patients, remembering that cutrtains round a bed are not sound proof
• People should not be made to feel embarrassed when receiving care and support.

• Dignity in care - Privacy
  Privacy is closely related to respect and features as a prominent issue throughout the related literature. Resources associated with promoting privacy within care services are available to download from...