Consultation skills (foundation)

Please note: You will not be able to book on this online event if you have previously attend the face to face Confidence in consultation skills full day event.

Enhancing the communication and consultation skills of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians has been identified as a priority by Health Education England. This downloadable programme forms part of the core learning for the Consultation skills for pharmacy practice programme.

Learning Objectives:

• explain the concept of patient-centred care
• describe the key communication and consultation skills and techniques required to conduct patient-centred care
• apply methods to assess your own practice and identify areas of improvement
• support patients, by using a patient-centred approach, to help them get the best from their medicines and/or in making healthy lifestyle choices
• further develop your practice by exploring tools and techniques, such as health coaching.

This programme takes a video-based approach to showcasing some of the key skills and behaviours required to demonstrate a patient-centred approach. Watching the experts in action and taking part in the interactive activities will help you reflect on your own consultations and apply new techniques to keep your patient at the centre of the consultation.

Learning Objectives:

• apply key phrases to facilitate a patient-centred approach to your consultation
• demonstrate appropriate skills and behaviours to ensure the best use of time in the consultation
• explain the concept of clinical empathy and how it can be demonstrated
• rate consultation skills and techniques more confidently in preparation for the Consultation skills for pharmacy practice assessment.

We’ve developed an online learning environment to promote and support work-based teaching and learning opportunities for the whole community pharmacy team. The learning platform is easily accessed at:theLearningpharmacy.com and has been developed for everyone in the community pharmacy. When you visit the site you can choose from a selection of topics or ‘pharmacy floors’ where you can select and work through practice-based, bite-sized learning challenges. Each challenge provides 10-15 minutes of quality learning and they’ve been developed to be fun and interactive.

Excellent communication and consultation skills are a key part of providing safe and effective services. CPPE has developed this set of cards to help all pharmacy staff improve their skills. All members of the pharmacy team should find this resource useful for improving their communication and consultation skills. The cards can be used by individuals, or as a tool to facilitate a training session.

This learning resource is also freely available for all pharmacy staff to download from the Consultation skills for pharmacy practice website.

Learning Objectives:

• describe what patient-centred care means
• be more confident when communicating with the people who come into your pharmacy
• recognise good communication and consultation skills, compared with those that need improvement
• explain how facial expressions and body language can improve communication and help to build a rapport
• apply good listening skills
• know how to close a consultation effectively and safely
• discuss some of the challenges and barriers to good communication in community pharmacy.

This e-assessment is linked with the practice standards for consultation skills and the CPPE consultation skills learning programmes.

Why should I do this assessment?

Completing this assessment will help you to check your progress and your ability to meet the competencies set out in the practice standards for consultation skills. Passing the assessment will provide assurance to you, your colleagues, other healthcare professionals and patients that you are able to recognise good practice, as well as practice that needs development.

Access and successful completion of this assessment will contribute to your own personal development plan, be recorded in your My CPPE record and will enable you to complete a CPD entry on the learning. It may also provide evidence for achieving competencies in the RPS Foundation or Advanced Pharmacy Frameworks. If you are working towards completing a Declaration of Competence for a pharmacy service, successful completion of this assessment will provide evidence of your learning.

In this animation we tell a story of a consultation between john (the patient) and Georgina (the pharmacy professional).

Demonstrating that you are developing your consultation skills and working towards the practice standards for pharmacy consultations is a core competence within Declaration of Competence (DoC).

Why we should understand the patient experience: clinical empathy and medicines optimisation