For some nurses, conversations with an older patient are simply the backdrop to caregiving; they represent social pleasantries that help to dignify the sometimes intimate work of the nurse. However, the narratives that patients share through conversations, the way in which incidents or feelings are expressed, can provide valuable additional information that can be used to improve care.

This article explores what analysis of narratives has to offer the care of older people and a way of nursing that works more closely with patients’ experience of illness, treatment and support. Narrative analysis is portrayed as one means to make nursing care more patient centred.