Your learning pathway

1. Why are consultation skills important for all pharmacy professionals? 1. Why?

As a pharmacy professional you play a key role in supporting people to manage their own health. Every time you speak with a patient or customer you have the opportunity to make a difference. Whether you are a hospital pharmacist discussing treatment at the patient’s bedside, a community pharmacist conducting a medicines use review or a pharmacy technician leading a smoking cessation service, patient consultations are likely to be a core part of your role. With the time constraints of pharmacy today you may find it a challenge to satisfy both your own and the patient’s agenda within the consultation.

2. How do I know what standard is expected of me? 2. What standard?

The practice standards for consultation skills set out the knowledge, skills, behaviours and attitudes you need when communicating and consulting with patients. In working towards these practice standards you will need to take a holistic view of the patient and to understand the specific health needs of your local population. As a pharmacy professional, it is your responsibility to develop your knowledge and competence and to integrate these standards into your everyday practice.
These national practice standards for consultation skills define the competencies that all pharmacy professionals should aspire to in their practice. We have adopted the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) framework when developing these practice standards, to help integrate pharmacy with other healthcare professions.

3. How do I know how effective my consultation skills are now? 3. Where am I?

There are several approaches you can take to assess your practice. Self-assessment is useful , but used in isolation it has limitations; you may find it a challenge to be subjective and your outcomes may be influenced by your own state of mind at the time of the assessment. That is why we have outlined a stepwise approach below, which will take you through a complete cycle, from personal reflection, to considering feedback from your peers, other healthcare professionals and, more importantly, patients and finally, observation of practice, which helps you to identify good practice, versus practice that needs improvement.

4. How do I improve or maintain my performance? 4. How do I improve?

Having worked through a self-assessment of competence against the practice standards for consultation skills you will have identified your strengths, as well as areas where you need to develop your skills further. Everyone learns differently, and with that in mind, we have recommended a set of learning steps to help you achieve your development goal. By using one style of learning, or a blend of learning methods, you can access the support you need to suit your individual requirements. Some of the skills, knowledge and behaviours needed for effective patient-centred consultations may be new to you, while some of you may feel more confident in these areas, but perhaps you want to enhance your practice, or would welcome reassurance that you do these tasks well.

5. How can I check my learning and development? 5. Assess my learning

At this step of the learning pathway you can take an e-assessment, which 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.

6. How do I continue to develop my skills and behaviours? 6. My ongoing development

We know you will want to maintain and continually improve your consultation skills with patients. It is easy to slip back into bad habits and poor practice when you’re busy in practice with too many patients or jobs to do. Here are some hints and tips to help you maintain your performance and keep improving.

Your learning pathway

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