Talking History: UKCCC, past to present
Talking History: UKCCC, past to present
Northern Network and the early days of the UKCCC
The UK Council for Clinical Communication in Undergraduate Medical Education (UKCCC) was founded in 2005.
Some years before, John Spencer (Newcastle) initiated the Northern Network, through which communication teachers in medical schools in the north of England met regularly to share experiences, best practice and innovations. The Northern Network’s ethos – an inclusive, open space for conversations and development of ideas– continued in the formation of the UKCCC, which grew to encompass all UK medical schools. Our first UKCCC chair was Jonathan Silverman, then Annie Cushing, Helen Salisbury, Sarah Collins, Caroline Sprake, Janet Lefroy, and next year, Harvey Wells.
Early UKCCC meetings set the trend by bringing together individuals with lead communication teaching responsibilities at different medical schools across the UK. Meetings opened with introductions by job title and role, highlighting the diversity of ways clinical communication was positioned in different medical schools. Over time, communication lead roles have become more standardised; but the host of disciplines – psychology, medicine, sociology, nursing, linguistics, ethics … – through which we share expertise is continually expanding.
The UKCCC is an inclusive, open space for conversations and development of ideas.
Dr Sarah Collins
Consultation skills frameworks, standards and resources for best practice
From its inception, the UKCCC used the Calgary Cambridge framework for patient-centred consultations in healthcare as a platform. Calgary Cambridge has provided a sounding board for discussing and evidencing best education practice in medical students’ learning and development of communication skills; and a platform for developing a consultation framework which includes clinical reasoning and examination skills, record-keeping and reporting skills. The key tasks of the consultation are represented in multiple ways through UKCCC activities over the past 20 years. To mention a few: an e-learning resource focusing on key tasks of the consultation, a consensus statement [weblink], a scenario bank for working with simulated patients [weblink to blog], a book [weblink], an Electronic Patient Record resource [Student guide to EPR writing – Wakelet] and, since 2007, our biennial national communication conferences [weblink to next one]
A model for collaboration
The UKCCC has always thrived on collaborative partnerships between communication leads across the UK. The principles and practices of patient-centred consultations are reflected in communication teachers’ (just as in communication as a subject area) capacity for open reflection, careful listening and cross-disciplinary conversations, allowing productivity/ideas to flourish and be acted on.
Continuity and progress
The UKCCC members’ roles embrace the clinical encounter, the consultation, communication skills – and partnerships and open conversations between clinical practitioners, patients and patient representatives, academics in communication, language and social sciences, and medical students. Meetings are hosted at different UK institutions, with exchange visits to observe and learn from each other’s teaching and the students we meet.
Over the past 20 years – with the evolution of new medical schools and expanding curricula, growing numbers of students, the changing economic, political and social landscape of medicine, the technological developments in consultation practice – UKCCC continues to provide a welcoming, inclusive space. The challenges remain the same: how to keep communication central and dynamic in the undergraduate medicine, so that our future doctors can build trusting, empathic relationships with patients and colleagues in healthcare, through effective, interpersonal communication.
Dr Sarah Collins is the former Chair of the UKCCC. Her background is in language teaching, linguistics, conversation analysis and communication research in healthcare and disability. Her interests include inclusive and interdisciplinary approaches in education, using the arts in communication teaching and learning, simulated patients, patient narratives, and student involvement in curriculum design and delivery.
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