Very interesting and gave a new insight into how meetings are run and conducted

FOR LIBRARIANS, EDUCATORS & HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS

‘I’m Going To Help You, Not Just Treat Your Feet:’ Towards A Patient/Client-Centred Relationship

Effective communication is essential to the success of any encounter in healthcare practice. Why then are healthcare professionals and their patient/clients so often at odds? Are both groups expressing more frustration and experiencing less satisfaction? Communicating effectively with a wide range of patient/clients in varying emotional states requires a combination of common sense and artifice.

How do you impact on your patient's/clients' behaviour? Offer them a carrot or stick? As healthcare professionals, do you persuade patients/patient/clients through the use or threat of sanctions or do you influence them through assistance, motivation and inspiration?

Whether in private practice or working in an NHS setting, a healthcare professional's demands and priorities are different from those of an individual client struggling to understand the need for proper care. Healthcare professionals will often require different communication approaches in order to ensure both understanding and compliance from their patient/clients.

Objectives

At the conclusion of the workshop, participants should be able to:

• Outline the basic psychological factors in interpersonal communication
• Understand differences in communication styles
• Describe some positive strategies for dealing with challenging personalities
• Evaluate the patient/client's readiness to change and identify ways to engage the non-compliant
• Identify problems in communication with your patients, clients, stakeholders and other healthcare professionals.

Workshop programme

Participants may be introduced to a range of subjects drawing on:

Remember your ABC's: Approach, Behaviour, Communication

• What's your approach to your profession?
• What do your patients/clients need and want from you?
• Barriers to communication and how communication breakdowns can effect care
• Active Listening: respond - don't react!
• Understanding your patient/client: just why do people behave the way they do? Comparison of four types of behaviour and "classic" response patterns

Managing the minefields: how to succeed with 'difficult' patients/clients

• Building the relationship and encouraging behavioural change
• Strategies for dealing with non-compliant, aggressive, and passive behaviours
• How to express empathy, check for understanding, elicit ideas, identifying differing perceptions and expectations
• Working towards commitment - exploring the patient/client's health understanding and adopting their health beliefs
• How to have those difficult conversations - how to help patients/clients accept what can and cannot be changed.

Multiagency working?

• Travelling on the same train, but (often) looking out of different windows: communicating effectively with professional colleagues, e.g. social workers
• Participating in the 'hot potato' of multiagency meetings
• How not to lose sight of your patient or client in the alphabet soup of multiple agencies