Final Report > Chapter 25: Competent Healthcare Professionals > Broadening the notion of competence > Communication skills

Communication skills

11 We are concerned here with attitudes - the frame of mind which the professional brings to the job. The pre-eminent attitude must be that the NHS is a service for the public. The needs of the patients must be the driving concern. This calls for a recognition of the need to establish and maintain good communication with patients and with fellow professionals. It calls for a commitment to respect patients, and to be honest and open towards them. And here, honesty includes the obligation of professionals to be honest with themselves about their abilities. An attitude of public service also calls for the ability to convey uncertainty without fearing that it will appear weak. It calls for retaining and conveying a sense of open-mindedness in the dialogue which is the patient's journey. Perhaps most important of all, it calls for a sense of shared humanity, sympathy, understanding, an ability to engage with the patient on an emotional level, an ability to listen, an ability to assess how much patients wish to know about their condition and treatment, and an ability to convey information with clarity and sympathy. Caring is not just `what nurses do'. It is what all healthcare professionals should do. In our view, therefore, the attitude of public service which we describe is the essence, the affirmation, of professionalism, not its antithesis.

12 There is already evidence that medical schools are developing their curricula to reflect the importance of personal and interpersonal skills. Largely in response to the General Medical Council's (GMC's) 1993 document, `Tomorrow's Doctors', [6] most courses now include modules on communication skills. Medical schools also recognise that doctors, in addition to acquiring a core of clinical knowledge and skills, must develop attitudes appropriate for professional practice. But the extent to which education in these non-technical, non-clinical areas is integrated into the curricula, and the relative weight given to them, varies considerably. The GMC's reports of recent visits to medical schools [7] demonstrate this. We commend the curriculum of Southampton University's Medical School as one where very great efforts have been made to integrate the education and training in personal and interpersonal skills into all parts of the curriculum. [8]

Footnotes

[6] We note that, as this Report goes to press, a newer edition of `Tomorrow's Doctors' is in preparation. It includes a renewed emphasis on the importance of communication skills in undergraduate medical curricula

[7] See the GMC's website www.gmc-uk.org where these reports are published

[8] We note the considerable emphasis placed on communication skills in the training of GPs, in the course of their professional training, over the past three decades