Consultation
Conducting the consultation
A useful way to think about the consultation is to cover the 3 E’s – Empathise, Evaluate and Educate, summarised below.
Tweaking sentences or adding short statements to your explanations can present information in a way that is most helpful for patients.
The CHESTSSS consultation structure, developed by the Royal College of General Practitioners as part of the TARGET toolkit and based on the evidence for effective communication strategies, is a quick way to help remind you what to tweak in your discussions with patients about antibiotics in particular.
CHESTSSS can help you to remember specific phrases which:
- Reassure patients
- Increase patient understanding and satisfaction with a prescribing decision
- Avoid re-consultations
- May be particularly helpful for patients who are expecting antibiotics.
Table 1 shows how CHESTSSS could be tailored to a consultation about sore throat.
