Resource Library: Shared Decision Making

  • People want to be more involved in decisions about their health and care. Shared Decision Making (SDM) is a collaborate process through which a clinician supports a patient to be as involved as they wish, in the decision-making process. It supports people to understand the care, treatment, and support options available and the risks, benefits and consequences of those options. This enables them to make an informed decision about a preferred course of action, based on evidence based, good quality information and their personal preferences.


    • Our evidence-based infographic provides a quick overview of the importance and benefits of SDM. For example, the graph below demonstrates that people who participated in SDM regarding their asthma treatment showed better adherence to medication.

      Explore more evidence via the link to our SDM infographic below. Please feel free to share this with your teams or display the poster in staff areas.

      Shared Decision Making Infographic


      • To support implementation of the NICE guideline on shared decision making, Keele University and NICE have worked in partnership to develop an online learning package. This is suitable for all healthcare professionals and aims to equip people with the skills and knowledge they need to have good-quality shared decision-making conversations with the people they are caring for. 

        The learning package is free to access and users can do so by clicking on the links below. It takes approximately 4 hours to complete and is made up of 6 modules: 

        • The Your Health, Your Conversation is a system-wide campaign that supports patients to think about what matters to them in advance of their appointments. We want patients to arrive prepared and empowered to make the most of their time with you, and other professionals involved in their care.  

          The Prepared Patient Toolkit, hosted on Teamnet, has been developed to support implementation of this campaign. It is designed for use across primary, secondary and community care settings to provide a consistent message to all patients – that it’s okay to ask. 

          Follow the link below to access the toolkit. 

          Your Health, Your Conversation (Prepared Patient Toolkit)


          • The following online learning resources are available. The Personalised Care Team at NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire also offer virtual, trainer-led sessions on an ad-hoc basis, which can be tailored to specific service needs. To request a session, please contact us at

            hw.personalisedcare@nhs.net.

            • Virtual Patient Avatars (Personalised Care Institute): Non-immersive reality training simulations to explore the key Shared Decision Making (SDM) micro skills of agenda-setting, teach-back, exploring patient preferences around treatment options and reaching a shared decision. Each Virtual Patient consultation can be completed in 10-15 minutes.  

            • SDM Programme (NHSE E-learning for Health): Several courses/modules which cover what SDM is and how to implement in practice. GPs specifically, maybe interesting in the Dialogues in SDM. This provides a visual interactive training experience designed to prompt discussion about and highlight strategies for (SDM) in the General Practice context. It comprises 12 scenarios which have been reconstructed from the caseloads of working GPs in the West Midlands.  

            • SDM online learning package NICE and Keele University: To support implementation of the NICE guideline on shared decision making, Keele University and NICE have worked in partnership to develop an online learning package. This is suitable for all healthcare professionals and aims to equip people with the skills and knowledge they need to have good-quality shared decision-making conversations with the people they are caring for. The learning package is free to access, and users can do so by clicking on the links below. It takes approximately 4 hours to complete and is made up of 6 modules.


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