Gary Etheridge, Chief Nurse, Director of Patients Services, West Hertfordshire NHS Trust

West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust has an 'Examples of Excellence in Practice' template, which they use to capture any useful areas of good practice within the Trust around Dignity in Care. In doing so, they also demonstrate what Department of Health key policies and guidance supports the 10 key Dignity Challenges and what other local initiatives can be followed to implement the 10 key challenges. The document is then shared within the Trust for people to learn from so they can tackle specific aspects of dignity such as communication or privacy issues.

Some of the initiatives include the following:

· Installing a music system to mask out confidential conversations, thus leading to greater privacy on certain wards;

· Issuing an 11 steps document on 'Breaking Bad News' which guides staff through how to break difficult news to patients sensitively;

· Implementing protected mealtimes to ensure that patients are not interrupted by clinical staff when they are eating.