Recently, following course feedback and some piloting work, the Advanced Communication Skills Courses were relaunched in a 2-day format. Dr Pauline Leonard who leads the initiative, reports the background here:
Connected was launched in July 2008 as a 3 day learner centered experiential course using actors and video feedback.
• Evaluation of the 3 day Connected programme from 12,733 clinicians
– 95% said the course met their expectations
- 83% said they would definitely recommend the course to a colleague
However one consistent theme was that many felt the course could be run over two long days rather than three. From June – Nov 2011 10 2-day pilot courses were run maintaining the core elements of 10 participants; each participant able to role play a self selected challenging communication scenario using a trained actor simulating the role of patient or colleague. Each role-play is videoed and reviewed with constructive feedback.
• Evaluations completed by the participants of 2-day programme (10 courses)
– 96% said course met their expectations
– 92% would recommend it to a colleague
Almost all 200 facilitators have now been trained to deliver the 2-day model which will fulfil Peer review requirements. The new 2-day model has been rolled out Nationally. The University of Birmingham have carried out a thorough review of the 2-day programme and concluded the overall experience is comparable to the 3-day programme.
