The last two decades have seen a marked shift in health care towards what has broadly become known as patient-centredness. Yet, the movement to patient-centred care has not been well-documented in academic literature. Even its definition has been left implicit, thus allowing the concept to mean different things to different professional and patient groups. This book provides a comprehensive review of the theory and practice of patient-centred health care, and underlines the importance of mutual understanding among health care professionals as the basis of such care in its strong inter-disciplinary orientation. As well as providing a description of patient-centred care, practical illustrations are provided to illustrate the ways in which different disciplines can contribute to the effective development and implementation of patient-centred care.