Is 'consumer-centred care' what consumers really need - or want? - Maree Cameron Interveiw #2

Maree Cameron PSM received the Victorian Public Service Medal in 2017 for her significant contribution to improving residential aged care.  (She and I discuss her thoughts on quality and safety in residential aged care in a separate interview.)  Over a long career focused on improving quality of care and life for residents, she has amassed considerable knowledge about what this takes.  

So does this knowledge help - or hinder - when you're the one receiving care?  Maree has had multiple encounters with the acute care sector over the past few years as a patient, and kindly agreed to share her thoughts on being on the 'other side of the bed'.  In this interview we discuss what patient-centred care means to an informed patient who knows what it 'should' be and how it is defined from the provider perspective; but is this really what patients need - or want?  

I'm very sad to report that Maree died in January 2024.  This makes her interviews all the more important as part of her huge legacy that lives on.