Create a 12 pages page paper that discusses the preservation of dignity for patients. This sentiment is upheld by the Amsterdam declaration on the support of patients’ rights, which recognizes that the preservation of dignity for patients is a fundamental consideration (WHO, 1994).

In the UK, there has been growing importance towards patients’ rights to be treated with respect, privacy and dignity (Department of Health 2007, 2006, 2001a, 2001b, Human Rights Act 1998), and therefore it has been deemed that nurses, especially as they are the frontline of care, have a professional duty to show respect towards their patients and to maintain their privacy and dignity (NMC, 2004. International Council of Nurses, 2001. Matiti and Sharman, 1999). Baillie (2007) defined dignity for patients as ‘feeling valued and psychologically comfortable with their physical presentation and behavior, their level of control and the behavior of the other people in the environment’ (p.30).

Striving to maintain dignity through the implementation of person-centered care in an emergency setting with older patients under the government’s current legislation to achieve four-hour targets in accident and emergency, within their policy of dignity and privacy for patients in a single-sex environment, is a hard task to manage.

Webster and Byrne (2007) state that while nurses have shown apprehension about being too busy during their shifts to be concerned about showing dignity and respect for all their patient’s needs, development in policies has been implemented to help them achieve these objectives in a very busy emergency ward. However, they state that sometimes the working environment nurses find themselves in is often a less than ideal one in regards to being able to maintain full dignity and respect to their patients as set forth by policy-makers (Webster and Byrne, 2007). Nevertheless, no nurse would deny that respect, privacy and dignity being shown to each individual patient are still their core objective, through the provision of person-centered care.