self management for life is an integrated approach to self management that improves outcomes for patients and helps healthcare professionals and commissioners to create effective and efficient interventions.
Patients explore the core competencies of self management and are given tools to use with their healthcare team, including techniques for improved consultations, communicating their priorities and agenda setting.
The self management for life programme is designed to be delivered using a range of methods to suit the needs of patients, healthcare professionals and clinicians. The course can be delivered in a range of languages, different community settings and for those with communications difficulties or hearing impairment.
Patients learn how to work more effectively in partnership with their health team, discovering what they can do to help themselves and how to make the best use of the time spent with their healthcare professionals. Learning from experienced peer facilitators, they develop the skills, tools and confidence to include self management as an ongoing part of their care pathway.
In addition to working with patients, the programme includes awareness sessions and training for clinicians, and health and social care professionals to better support patients to become optimal self managers. It explores the journey of a patient living with a long-term health condition, and how to support patient activation towards behaviour change by encouraging a patient’s level of motivation to change.
This is an interactive programme, delivered by facilitators who are either living with a long-term condition, and/or have experience of actively supporting people to self-manage.
It promotes:
- sustainable ongoing support for self management
- person-centred approach
- patient engagement
- partnership between healthcare professionals and patients.
Patients gain:
- skills to self-manage for life
- tools & techniques
- peer support
- increased confidence in their ability to self-manage and make decisions
- better knowledge of their condition and how the healthcare team can help them
- better quality of life
Health professionals and clinicians gain:
- useful skills for managing consultations and preparing personalised care plans with patients
- practical approaches to help safely share responsibility with patients for managing their condition
- self management enabling tools including goal-setting, action-planning, follow-up, problem-solving, agenda-setting
- increased understanding of the patient perspective and opportunity to explore a more collaborative approach
How does it work?
- training programmes – online and face-to-face
- online support
- peer support group
- tool kit
- integrated into care pathways or stand-alone solutions.
