Table 4 Five research priorities to improve fundamental care

1. Nurse Staffing

(‘having time to care’, completing care, being able to respond to patient needs promptly, manageable workloads, not needing temporary staffing)

“Patients including myself had been buzzing for pain relief for over an hour. (kept being told “be there in a minute”) […] Waited nearly 2 h for pain meds. Nurses were tired, not enough staff, too many patients to staff ratio”.

2. Individualised patient care

(assessing care needs fully, care plans that take account of the individual, appropriate clinical care, patient centred care, ‘putting the patient first’, ‘treating the person not the condition’)

“my frail older mother was treated with respect and listened to, time was taken to ensure that she was treated as an individual and her past life […] It went well because my mother was treated as an individual, and was cared for with respect”

3. Information about care and involvement

(providing patients with information about their care, informed consent, enabling dialogue between patients and staff ‘hearing the patient’)

“From the start I was kept informed about what the process was, what was going to happen before during and after the operation. The experience was good because they managed the difficult balance of knowing absolutely what they were doing because they do it every day with the understanding that for me personally it was something happening just to me”

4. Staff communication

(communication between health care professionals, styles of communication, sharing information between staff/handover)

“Staff took the time to handover patients concerns to the next shift. Consistency of care was kept even though the staff changed”

5. Staff attitudes/relationships with patients

(staff relationships with patients, ethos and values, maintaining compassion, patients feeling staff ‘care’/they matter)

“Staff treated older patient as though she was nothing more than a nuisance and was getting on their nerves. Very distressing.”