Integrate patient-professional partnership principles into all healthcare professional education and training

The Index has not yet recorded a verbatim government response to this recommendation.

Shared decision-making is one element of NHS England’s Personalised Care programme. This also places a strong focus on supported self-management, such as through expert patient programmes, patient choice, social prescribing and community-based support, personalised care support and planning and personal health budgets. All NHS and independent sector (IS) providers are regulated by CQC. Assessments include how services ensure that patients understand and are involved in decisions regarding their care.

This is supported in a variety of ways, including the following:

• GMC decision making and consent guidance, which explicitly states that doctors must seek to explore patient’s needs, values and priorities, to support them to assess the potential impact of different treatment options.

• An NHS England e-learning programme, which assists healthcare professionals in embedding shared decision-making in everyday practice. It is designed to be used as part of ongoing professional development. It has been developed in partnership with the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, the Advancing Quality Alliance and the University of Cambridge.

• The NICE shared decision-making guidelines (2021), which cover how to make shared decision-making part of everyday care in all healthcare settings. It promotes ways for healthcare professionals and people using services to work together to make decisions about treatment and care. It includes recommendations on training, communicating risks, benefits and consequences, using decision aids, and how to embed shared decision-making in organisational culture and practices.

• To support implementation of the guideline, NICE have developed an online learning package to equip healthcare professionals with the skills and knowledge they need to have good-quality shared decision-making conversations with the people they are caring for.

• Choosing Wisely UK, a resource developed by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges as part of a global initiative aimed at improving conversations between patients and their healthcare professionals.

• The CQC brief guide on Capacity and consent in under 18s • NICE guidance on what good patient experience looks like for babies, children and young people, which covers shared-decision making

General NHS guidance on consent to treatment for children and young people, which covers assessing capacity. The AoMRC’s guidance is also reflected in NICE guidance on shared decision-making.

Guidelines for shared decision-making as a way of working focus on good communication with families as an embedded part of the conversation between the patient and the healthcare professional. Decision-making aids support this, such as those available through NICE guidance.

The Government agreed with this recommendation.

In its January 2002 Response, the Department of Health said that the NHS Plan 2000 stressed the importance of communicating well with patients and their families, and this would be reflected in education and training programmes as part of basic training and as part of continuing professional development.