Supporting effective doctor–patient communication: doctors’ name badges

Name badges are a simple additional method of communicating doctors’ names to patients and their families, but uptake remains poor

Most new relationships begin with an exchange of names and most existing relationships are reinforced using names. Except in health care. Despite campaigns such as #hellomynameis (https://www.hello​mynam​eis.org.uk/), clinicians’ names remain absent from many health care experiences and environments. Patients meet many people during an illness journey, particularly when that takes place in a public hospital. There are nurses rotating through different shifts, the specialist under whom the patient is admitted, a registrar, resident or intern, plus maybe a medical student or two. There are also teams of allied health providers.