Clinical communication underpins safe patient care. The effective health professional sees illness through the patient's eyes and understands what matters most to him or her. Effectiveness means gathering hard clinical data about the physical changes affecting the patient, understanding why the patient is concerned, conveying this to other health care professionals and involving the patient at every stage of management decisions.

The evidence for good clinical communication is well established, although there are challenges. While listening is the basis of sound diagnosis and...

Clinical professionalism is a set of values, behaviours and relationships which underpins the public s trust in healthcare providers both as individuals and organisations.