Report Writing and Courtroom Skills for Healthcare

Course Outline Day 1: Effective Recording and Report Writing for Healthcare

One-day report writing training for healthcare professionals. Gain the necessary knowledge and skills to create effective and GDPR compliant records and reports.

An intensive and highly practical training day, delivered by qualified lawyers. This course will focus firstly on analysing why clinical records are kept and best practice standards in maintenance of good records in compliance with GDPR requirements. It will then look at where professionals fit into the legal system and how their records and reports can be used as evidence in a court hearing. It then goes on to assist attendees in understanding what is required from reports.

This course also considers the content of reports by considering the source and weight of evidence to be included and learning to distinguish between facts, inference and opinion. It considers the type and format of reports. Organisations may submit sample reports from a fictional or completed case in advance of the training. The trainer will review these reports and give feedback to attendees on the day.

Key Learning Points

• The importance of good record keeping,
• Understand the function of their records,
• Understand the function of records and GDPR requirements,
• Learn the components of good record keeping,
• Understand how records are used as evidence in legal proceedings,
• Learn how to create a report with the assistance of their records,
• Look at appropriate layout, format and style for their reports,
• Be able to identify the issues and the facts, and the source and weight of those facts,
• Develop an objective and critical eye in relation to their report writing.

Course Outline Day 2: Courtroom Skills for Healthcare Professionals

This 1 day training course delivered by La Touche Training will examine the type of cases medical, social and healthcare professionals encounter and give them the skills needed to excel in the witness box.

An intensive and highly practical day where the procedures in giving evidence, the order of events, the roles of different people in the court and the process of giving evidence will be explained. The techniques lawyers use to disconcert and discredit witnesses will also be examined.

The morning session is designed to demystify the process of giving evidence. In the afternoon session some delegates will experience being cross-examined by a lawyer on a fictional case study.

Course objectives

On completion of this course delegates will have a clear understanding of:

• Jurisdiction of the Courts,
• What is required of local authority staff in Court?
• How the adversarial system works,
• The procedures, order of events and roles of those in the adversarial systems,
• How to prepare for giving evidence,
• Taking the oath/affirmation with confidence,
• Techniques lawyers use in cross-examination and how to handle them,
• How to give clear, honest and objective evidence,
• How to make appropriate use of supporting evidence, documents and notes when giving evidence,
• How to give confident and clear testimony under cross-examination.

Key learning points

• The roles and procedures in the adversarial system,
• How to prepare for giving evidence,
• Techniques lawyers use in cross-examination and how to handle them,
• How to give clear, honest and objective evidence,
• How to make appropriate use of supporting evidence, documents and notes when giving evidence,
• How to give confident and clear testimony under cross-examination,
• Experiential role-play on a local authority related case study.