Supporting Self-Management for Life

Whilst self-management has many challenges for patients with long-term health conditions, supporting patients to become optimal self-managers isn’t always easy for clinicians either. Often it isn’t the advice and the information that people receive that leads to behaviour change, but rather the way the information and advice is offered. Effective support for self-management is an essential function of our health service, and with the development of Personalised Health Plans and the need to increase cost efficiency, it is set to become a core skill for all health professionals.

The ‘Supporting Self-Management for Life’ programme for clinicians aims to enable them to build on their existing skills so they can work in true and effective partnership with patients and to provide self-management support. The three workshops allow them to explore life with a long-term health condition from a patient perspective, and to recognise the obstacles and challenges which get in the way of optimal self-management, and try out skills which when used in practice allow them to build motivation and confidence in the patients they work with.

Innovative features include the role of patients as co-facilitators alongside local clinicians, a ‘patient voice’ which is vividly articulated throughout, and covers three main themes which include a range of topics:

Offering the return of responsibility:

• Negotiating an agreed shared agenda
• Establishing the level of self-management activation
• Establishing self-management as a goal
• Sharing decisions

Supporting change:

• Questioning with curiosity and interest
• Exploring ambivalence
• Motivating new behaviour
• Identifying the need to know

Building confidence:

• Exploring realistic goals
• Moving to action
• Sharing success and challenge
• Facilitating problem solving
• Developing personalised care planning

The workshops provide the opportunity to receive coaching around particular tools and the skills required to use these.

Research and evaluation has found that after completing similar training, clinicians are more likely to apply the tools in their everyday practice.

For more information please call Freephone 0800 988 5550 or contact us by email

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