The programme:

TPC Health partnered with the NHS Kent Surrey & Sussex Leadership Academy to develop a programme for community pharmacists to learn how to use coaching to enhance their consultation skills and improve patient outcomes in medication adherence and lifestyle choices. The wider aim was for community pharmacists to play a more active role in supporting patient self-management and reducing visits to GPs.

Intervention:

We delivered a two day coaching for consultation skills programme to the pharmacists, with the two days spread about two weeks apart to allow time to embed learning and practice some of the techniques from day one prior to day two. This was evaluated with participants completing a pre workshop evaluation, and two post workshop evaluations, one about a week after the second workshop and a further evaluation sixteen weeks later.

Results:

Participants reported that they had changed the way they spoke to patients, and the majority (94%) were regularly using a health coaching approach 4 months later. The key consultation skills domains they reported benefits in were listening actively, asking questions of the patient to raise awareness and aid in decision making. Several participants had found the approach particularly useful for Medicine Use Reviews.

Verbatim feedback

“I loved the course. After those two days, I have changed the way I approach patients and in many cases, my conversations have been brilliant”

“invaluable support to our daily job in our community”