Informed patients

Understanding patients' information needs is merely the beginning in a much needed reform of communications between healthcare professionals and the public. CA's latest policy report, Patient information: what's the prognosis?, calls for a series of measures which will ultimately reassure patients

and provide them with direction in their quest for knowledge. CA puts forward a number of proposals designed to tackle existing problems and pave the way for better patient information. These include the creation of a central and impartial source of medicines and treatment information, the introduction of medicines education into the national curriculum, and improvement of communication skills training for healthcare professionals. These steps will help to equip people with the wherewithal to engage in shared decision-making and lay the foundations for meeting patients' and carers' information needs at all levels.