The key things you and your staff can do to achieve this include the following: 

• Establish rapport with the patient and demonstrate empathy – this builds a climate of trust that encourages patients to disclose information that reveals the 'heart of the matter' that needs to be addressed 
• Explore what the patient already knows, so you don’t waste time repeating it. Use your expertise to correct any factual errors or misunderstandings the patient reveals 
• Ask the patient what they need and want to know about a medicine and tailor your advice accordingly. Does the patient want support for or to be told about:

• What the medicine is used for?
• Risks or side effects?
• How the medicine should work?
• The benefits of the medicine?
• How they can fit medicines taking into their routine or lifestyle so they don’t forget to take them?
• Alternative medicines?
• Potential risks of not taking their medicine?
• Alternative courses of action? e.g. national support group or society.

This avoids providing information the patient doesn’t want, and so is likely to ignore. The time can be better used to provide the necessary information that will make the greatest difference to the patient and their health outcomes. 

• Ask the patient whether they have any worries or concerns. To encourage patients to talk and disclose information, be non-judgemental about the patient’s response, eg patient beliefs about medicines or treatment that you don’t agree with 
• Use open questions that encourage honesty, eg instead of asking “Have you missed any doses of your medicine?”, ask “How many doses, if any, have you missed?” 
• Facilitate shared decision making and avoid telling the patient what to do

• This includes accepting a patient’s decision even if it’s not to take a medicine. If this is the case you may need to discuss:

• Alternative medicines
• Different formulations
• The benefits vs risks of taking or not taking a medicine
• Referral back to the prescriber.

Doing this in practice 

As patient-centred consultations have developed, a number of consultation skills models have emerged. These models can help to structure the consultation and provide a framework for pharmacy professionals to identify and develop the skills and techniques for conducting patientcentred consultations.

The model introduced here is the Calgary Cambridge Guide, which was originally developed as a medical model and which has also been shown to be applicable to pharmacy. It can be used any time pharmacy professionals meet with a patient and have an opportunity to discuss their medicines or condition including a Medicines Use Review (MUR), a New Medicines Service (NMS) consultation or dispensing and handing out prescriptions.