How do I continue to develop my skills and behaviours?
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.
We recommend you revisit this website often. We plan to add more tools, ideas and resources to the website over the coming months. Sign up for our Twitter account (@CSfPP) and keep an eye on the news pages of this website.
All health professionals are advised to maintain a portfolio of their learning to support their development, CPD recording and career. Make sure you record the development of your consultation skills in your portfolio. This will help if you are considering applying for recognition through the RPS or APTUK career development schemes.
The RPS have developed two professional frameworks to support pharmacists with their application to the RPS Faculty. These are great ways to further critique your performance and plan for continuing development.
Assess your skills regularly by revisiting step three of this learning pathway - our stepwise approach to self-assessment – on an annual basis. Why not make a date each year in your diary or work planner? By regularly reflecting on your progress you can identify areas for further improvement, providing a focus for your learning. Don’t forget to record your learning in your CPD record!
As part of your ongoing learning, why not explore additional consultation and communication skills, or consider some more intensive learning opportunities. We recognise that people’s levels of existing skills, knowledge and experience will vary, and some of you may enjoy the chance to develop additional skills, such as health coaching. Look out for further learning opportunities from your employer, local NHS learning providers, or CPPE, and keep an eye on this website for news of extra learning resources and events.
Learning communities are small groups of work colleagues or friends, who get together to learn in an informal (but effective!) way. Have a look at the CPPE website to find out more about how you can form your own community and access resources to help you develop your consultation skills with colleagues
Using social media will give you the chance to share ideas about how to maintain and develop your competence and skills in consultations with patients and give you ideas for further learning.