Difficult Patient Conversations with Resilience
Provider: Striding Edge Consultancy
Hosted by: Jacki Piper
Lesson Overview:
Difficult conversations training for primary care helps staff develop the confidence, empathy and practical communication skills needed to manage challenging conversations with patients, colleagues and carers.
Primary care teams regularly support people who are anxious, frustrated, distressed, angry or struggling to follow advice. These conversations can place real pressure on reception teams, care navigators, administrators, clinicians and managers.
This course explores why conversations become difficult and how staff can respond with clarity, compassion and resilience. It supports delegates to understand behaviour, build rapport, manage boundaries and communicate in ways that reduce conflict while preserving dignity and trust.
Who is training for:
This course is suitable for primary care staff who have difficult conversations with patients, carers, colleagues or members of the wider healthcare team.
- Reception and patient services teams
- Care navigators and GP assistants
- Administrators and secretarial staff
- Practice managers and team leaders
- Health care assistants and nursing teams
- Social prescribers, link workers and care coordinators
- Clinicians who support patients with complex needs or health behaviour change
The course is particularly useful for teams who want to improve patient communication, reduce avoidable conflict and support staff wellbeing when conversations are emotionally demanding.
Learning Outcomes:
By the end of the session the delegate will be able to:
- Understand why some conversations feel difficult and how perceptions can shape responses.
- Explore how stress, anger and emotional pressure affect communication and behaviour.
- Develop confidence in using empathy, rapport and curiosity during challenging conversations.
- Consider the role of boundaries, values and clarity when conversations become uncomfortable.
- Practise approaches for responding to anger, frustration, distress and unreasonable behaviour.
- Apply communication skills to difficult conversations about patient health behaviours.
- Build personal resilience by understanding what is within and outside our control.
Select Dorset Training hub when registering
Use password: Dorset2026
