Be Patient

Do 'patients' exist any more in the UK health and social care sector? I've been out of the office for most of this week working on a video project for the health, social and child care sector and not one of the people working in health care were allowed to refer to the people that they work with (or on behalf of) as 'patients'. Instead, they are referred to as 'service users', 'clients' and 'customers'. Yes, I appreciate that the NHS wants to foster a culture of 'customer service', and rightly so too, but what's so wrong with the word 'patient'?