Teaching communication skills

During the 2018 radiotherapy programme review, teaching staff at the University of the West of England (UWE) identified a gap in the provision of communication skills training. Although rudimentary patient communications skills were taught in year one, with advanced communication a focus of year three, staff and multidisciplinary team communication skills were not covered in any academic elements of the programme. Feedback received from clinical practice educators and students identified recurring situations in which poor communication was perceived to be the likely cause of conflict or anxiety. Common scenarios included questioning staff at inappropriate times, leaving a shift early without communicating this effectively and leaving staff unsure of a student’s whereabouts, and reporting potential set-up errors.

Following the successful creation and implementation of a set of branched decision-based learning scenarios used to teach communication skills at level one, a similar approach was adopted at level...