Guideline 1: Family carer inclusive practices
3 out of 5Specific strategies
Make sure the physical setup of the clinic is family friendly
- The setup of the consultation room can very quickly make family feel welcome or unwelcome.
- Provide enough seating and facilities for patients and family carers in waiting rooms and consultation rooms (where possible).20
- Be aware of how the configuration of seating may affect consultation dynamics with family, either:
- Positively (e.g. seating the family carer next to the patient)
- Negatively (e.g. seating the family carer in the corner or on a stool) 21
- Ideally, clinicians should have seating arrangements that are flexible to meet the needs of different patients and families.
Click the + button below to reveal examples of good and poor clinic room setups for family carer inclusion.
Good clinic room setups
In this room there is a chair for both the patient and the family carer. The clinician’s chair faces them both. Ideally, there would be a third chair in the room.
In this setup, there is an additional chair that could be dragged closer to the doctor, in case a second support persons attend with the patient.
This room is setup well, as it can accommodate the patient and two support people and the clinician’s chair is facing all three attendees.
Poor clinic room setups
There is nowhere for family carers to sit in this clinic room. This setup could make the family carer/s feel unwelcome, and uncomfortable, if they had to stand for the entire consultation.
In this room, the patient’s chair is placed appropriately close to the clinician’s chair, however the family carer’s chair is at the back of the room. This could signal that they are not an important part of the consultation.
Whilst there are three chairs in this room, enough to accommodate a patient and two support people, the placement of the chairs is not optimal. The family’s chairs are too far away from the doctor and this would make it difficult for them to participate in conversations.
OVERALL COMPLETION
