>>Dalvinder Jammu: Tools come and go and new models come and go and questionnaire surveys,
so there was some apprehension to start with, but when staff started seeing the value of
the PAM tool for themselves in terms of working with the patient, then reviewing them and
then getting that second questionnaire back with a higher level and higher score, that
then showed the staff themselves that the work they were doing was having an impact
on the person and gave us a way to measure that. Whereas in previous years we haven’t
had that, particularly within the third sector. Simply, PAM works. I think it takes time to
embed, I think it takes time to bring it to a standard where it’s working routinely
and benefiting all parties, so obviously the organisation delivering and the patients but
from our own learning we used all of the research, we used all of the training tools that were
available to us and we had to, erm you know, implement things as we went, in stages, so
we couldn’t just you know throw the baby out with the bath water, it was a case of
this is you know our new model well implement it, we’ll get to know it, we’ll get to
understand it but once you start seeing the value in it for yourself it’s almost self-explanatory.
You can see the quality of the work that you put in reflected in the PAM scores. So, if
you get a patient who has a low PAM score you do your intervention with them and you
re PAM them maybe after two or three months, provided you have done it in a manner suitable
for that particular patient, nine times out of ten you will see the improvement in scores.
How do you feel about PAM?
>>Toyin Ligali: Really, um, I thought it’s
a waste of time until I started to use it myself. I started to use it reluctantly, I
must be very honest and erm, I began to find out that some of my patients that I used the
PAM for, some were not aware that their health is actually in their hands and as we began
to answer the questionnaire some would come back and say “umm really, really am I in
charge of my health?”. So, it is kind of bringing the awareness that they can actually
look after themselves.
What do you think about PAM now?
How PAM has helped me to see that my patients, you know that they are improving, even if
it’s not improving I am able to pick it up and find another way, you know, may change
their care plan or change my approach into helping them. You know, it has given me great
joy to see that, you know, patients, I am able to empower my patients to use PAM and
also for them to be able to self-care and realising their health is in their hands.
So, it gives me great joy.
How does PAM help the doctor-patient relationship?
>>Dr Talac Mahmud: I, I, think personally we were just doing what we thought was best
for the patient and it wasn’t necessarily what they needed or wanted but they wouldn’t
necessarily say, “oh that, that isn’t appropriate for me. That’s too much or too
little information for what I need to have.” And so we’ve got involved in the PAM pilot
and which was erm, NHS England have got some licenses and we were really keen to look at
how the evaluation of the PAM tool could help to identify the need of the patients so that
when we do get engaged in a conversation about self-care, we do actually could give something
that is relevant and appropriate to that patient. And, with goals and goals setting, we have
goals which were more realistic for that person. So, you wouldn’t push somebody that didn’t
want to be pushed and you wouldn’t patronise or constrain somebody that wanted to do more.
So it helps as a guide and actually what we found is that it helps to speed up the conversation.