In response to the developing COVID-19 crisis, the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine has teamed up with the Group Consultations programme, in collaboration with the American College of Lifestyle Medicine and Australasian Society of Lifestyle Medicine to put together a series of resources around virtual group consultations.

We have brought together experts in lifestyle medicine and group consultations to explore how we can maintain continuity of care for patients with chronic conditions at this challenging time.

While global health services are focused on tackling the pandemic, planned/routine for non-covid patients will remain critical. So how do we innovate while safely and efficiently supporting patients with chronic disease during the international lockdown?​

 

Purpose of virtual group consultation resources
  • Inform and empower patients at high risk of COVID-19
  • Manage triage of COVID-19 symptomatic patients safely and efficiently
  • Provide continuity of care for chronic disease patients you would normally see face to face
  • Consider virtual groups for antenatal care
  • Motivate and engage other staff who are self-isolating or infected by contributing to the effort and safely delivering care
Frequently Asked Questions

During past VGC webinars, we asked those taking part to submit any questions to speakers so we could compile a FAQs document to support those looking to implement virtual group consultations.

You can access the FAQ document here

Group consultations facilitator accreditation

We are now offering group consultation and virtual group consultation facilitators the opportunity to become accredited with the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine.

Becoming an accredited facilitator will automatically make you a BSLM associate member – giving you access to all BSLM member benefits including access to the resources section of our website.

Find out more about BSLM facilitator accreditation

Previous Webinars

Select a previous VGC webinar to watch

Free Online Resources

You can access free online resources to help you via the Group Consultations App.

These include:

  • High Level Flow
  • Session Roadmap
  • Pre-session Checklist
  • In-session Checklist
  • Post-session Checklist
  • Etiquette & Understandings Guidance
  • Patient Recruitment Guidance
  • Patient Information Guidance

Click Here to Download the App

More information on Group Consultations is also available at groupconsultations.com

Patient & Staff Evaluation

It is important that those implementing virtual group consultations register through the Group Consultations App to share what they are using virtual group consultations for, the frequency and scale (average group size and staff delivering).

We have set up country-specific satisfaction questions on the ThoughtCloud platform to give clinical teams an easy option for collecting feedback which can then be compared within and between countries with opportunities to share rich text, verbal and video feedback as well as ratings, if desired.

For each country there is a unique link for patients (P1) and staff (S1) for their first virtual group consultation. Plus links for two questions after every virtual group consultation including the first: again for patients (P2 & P3) and staff (S2 &S3). Please send feedback to office@bslm.org.uk

Patient Advocates

We want to create a patient forum to make this clear it is a grassroots clinical innovation that patients co-design and champion. If you agreed during the live webinar or would now like to nominate patient leads/advocates for virtual group consultations, you are invited to forward the below link to patients you would nominate. (We suggest one or two per team/practice – especially the 116 (16%) of teams from the first webinar who are already delivering virtual group consultations).

Please direct patients to this form to provide their details: forms.gle/UuXSSb5FbBksNu528