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June 2009

Following the consultation exercise with health and social care professionals and older people, we are now at the stage of planning the training programme and the accompanying toolkit. To that end, seven speech and language therapists have been recruited (one in each pilot PCT) to work on the course design and delivery in their respective areas.

We will also seek endorsement from the Royal College of Nursing, College of Occupational Therapy and Chartered Society of Physiotherapy.

We are hoping to start delivering the course from November of this year.

February 2009

Between November 2008 and January 2009 almost 470 health and social care professionals took part in our consultation on their communication skills training needs. We also heard the views of 76 older people with a neurological condition on how communication between patients, carers and professionals can be improved.

The findings revealed that professionals had great interest and motivation in receiving more training and utilising different methods to communicate with their patients. They felt that better communication does lead to better care.

Older people who took part in our focus groups wanted to see an improvement in the professionals’ ability to use verbal and non verbal communication with their service users. They also emphasised the importance of being treated as an individual, with dignity and respect.

The next stage will be to design the training and then delivering it, hopefully starting from November 2009.

For any queries, please email Anna D’Agostino at anna.dagostino@brainandspine.org.uk