Weeknotes #5 — Designing for health anxiety
Last week was a difficult week. On Tuesday I showed up for a medical procedure. It didn’t take place as I was too anxious. I was referred for a general anaesthetic instead.
I mention this in the context of work because it made me reflect a lot on the design of health services. I am privileged to have only ever needed minor medical treatment. However I have always suffered from fairly extreme anxiety when it comes to having treatment of any sort.
Whether I had that procedure or not that day hung soley on how the clinician handled the five minute conversation prior. Sadly the NHS is under so much pressure right now there is very little time for real care. I found out afterwards that the appointment was for 30 minutes. If I wasn’t ready to go within that first five minutes, it wasn’t going to happen.
It made me think about what interventions could have helped here. Obviously we can’t redesign the whole system, and there are wider systemic needs at play here, but what small things could have helped within the current constraints?
The previous clinician I saw was great. Very reassuring. I wonder why she didn’t recommend me for a general anaesthetic procedure in the first place which would have meant I skipped the trauma of trying to get it done under local. Is my care being considered from end-to-end or is each interaction being dealt with separately?
Could some simple notes from the last clinician flagged my anxieties to the next one? Could the ‘lovely’ letters we receive give advice on how to stay calm rather than listing acronyms you get addicted to googling?
Yes please to Letters Hack next year!
This adventure meant I didn’t get my Joy day this week. Working Friday for the first time in 2 months actually made the weekend feel weirdly short. I like that I’m getting used to a better balance.
In other news we were getting ready for research at Lloyds. We did a practice interview for our user research which was great. We did it with one of the team who had personal experience of the subject matter to test our approach and pacing. It was super helpful to flag up a few considerations that we hadn’t thought of at all.
A few other nice things are happening at the moment. Firstly I’m having lots of chats with charities about work next year. The lovely Charley, from Inclusively, and I are writing a proposal together and I’m responding to a few interesting requests for proposal and I got shortlisted for a part time role. I’m feeling excited about 2022.
I’m also having lots of mentoring chats. This is something I’ve always tried to do but couldn’t always fit in during my time at NHS Digital. It’s usually with people looking to move into the service design space. Some find me via Mega Mentor. Some just find me. I find it a nice way to start the day, helping someone a little.
Lastly I took my own advice and Emily and I signed up for a memoir writing course. I’m really excited to take the first step on my writing journey.
The next few weeks will be quite isolating as I can’t risk getting Covid before going into hospital. I’m trying to wrap my ahead around how to best cope with this.
Three things I’m taking into next week:
- Practice interviews are a useful approach to digging out things you haven’t thought of for research planning
- I don’t have to say yes to projects that don’t feel quite right. I want to make sure I have faith in myself that the right things will come along and not book myself up too early because I’m in a panic about lack of work
- Get out of the house over the next two weeks!
