Blog: Shared Decision Making update

By Alison Wilkinson 

We are several months into our role in supporting clinicians, system-wide, to embrace the use of the decision support tools (DST) for osteoarthritis (OA) of the hip and knee.

We have met and spoken to many people and discovered that sadly most clinicians were not aware of the tools. The continued pressures of working in the NHS and an ever increasing demand does make it feel an uphill struggle to keep abreast with all new developments however helpful they may be.

Despite this, the tools have been met with a very positive response from both clinicians and people: sparking conversations and questions about the hip and knee journey and how best we can utilise these tools along the pathway.

We have been able to engage with clinicians from across the pathway. GP and First Contact Practitioners (FCP) to Consultants and all of the workforce inbetween... but there is much more work to do!

Initial CollaBorate data Nic (Nicola Bussey, ULHT) and I have collected in Physiotherapy is really positive. It tells us that people feel they are having a Shared Decision Making conversation but it raises the question, do people really know what a Shared Decision Making conversation should look like? Preparing people seems the next sensible step in engaging them in conversations about what is important and what matters to them and their individual care.

One of the biggest challenges for everyone is being able to access the tools easily. Whilst being available online, they are unable to be completed digitally, at the moment. Also, how we communicate that a tool has been used with a person, is proving to be difficult. For example, we dont currently know if a DST has been used in Primary Care when a person arrive at Outpatients. With so many different system partners using a variety of different IT and documentation, it is a difficult obstacle to overcome. 

Currently, we are using the tools in paper format so that we are making as many partners aware that people might start bringing these with them, to their appointments. 

Next up is a meeting with the Lower limb Orthopaedic Consultants, reaching out to GPs further and AQP providers that are not yet aware of our work. We will continue to discuss the DSTs with the Co-production group so we get their unique perspective on how best to utilise the resource.

Then, it's about introducing the Ask 3 Questions approach to people and clinicians. A poster is available to download from this page.

Nic and I are also fully-fledged Shared Decision Making trainers. We hope to be delivering that course content to you very soon, so wish us luck!

Click on the button below to find the next Shared Decision Making course and for further information. 

To work with Alison or Nicola on Shared Decision Making, please contact us via lhnt.itsallaboutpeople@nhs.net