Effective communication
What can we do as individuals and as teams to improve our communication skills and improve interactions with patients?
The Inner Consultation by Roger Neighbour3 describes a five-stage intuitive model to consultations:
- Connect with the patient to develop rapport and empathy
- Summarise with the patient their reasons for attending and how they are feeling
- Discuss with the patient an agreed and written management plan that gives control to them
- 'Safety-net' by making contingency plans in case the clinician is wrong or something unexpected happens
- Do necessary 'housekeeping' €“ take measures to ensure the clinician stays in good shape for the next patient.
- It is important to recognise that this is all about hearing and responding, not simply listening and using pre-determined questions.
Activity
Find a patient who is happy to have their consultation audio recorded.
- Carry out the consultation
- Afterwards, listen to the recording
- Review how it sounds and list the abbreviations and any other terms that are not patient-friendly
- Think about how you could change the language to be more patient-friendly
- Use it in future consultations
- Repeat this exercise at least once every three months.