“Hello my name is…”

Kate Grainger should be proud, nearly every member of staff I’ve encountered in my treatment has introduced themselves with “Hello my name is”.

There is one slight hitch, not all of them sound as if they mean it.   Sometimes it is a rushed, mechanistic greeting, sometimes with no eye contact, sometimes the disconnect between the body language, tone of voice and what is said make it sound as if they are saying “Hello my name is Dracula, and don’t you dare get in my way”!   The strangest “hello my name is..” I have seen was on a written sign at a reception desk, it said “hello my name is Becky please be nice to me”!!!

I’m not sure that is quite what Kate meant?

So as I sit and wait, and you do a lot of that wherever you are in the NHS, I observed the grumpy “Hello my namers”.  I came to the conclusion that they were not very happy folk.  You could see it in the way they moved around, how they spoke to each other and the patients and their whole demeanour.  Their emotional well being just wasn’t good, either they were having a bad day or they were on the go slow – and it showed.

I know that we can’t all be jolly and up beat all the time, goodness me do I know that! But when you are a vulnerable patient those little things really matter and make such a difference to the time you are on the ward or in the clinic.  So next time you say “Hello my name is..”, try and sound as if you really mean it, make eye contact and try to smile even if you don’t feel like it, it really does make a difference to person you are speaking to.