Communicating in Health & Social Care Organisations

This report explores the role of communication in health and social care organizations, including the use of communication skills, methods to deal with inappropriate interpersonal skills, and the use of communication to support user needs. It also discusses various communication theories, the influence of culture and legislation, and the use of organizational policies to promote communication. Additionally, it examines the benefits and legal considerations of using ICT in healthcare.

COMMUNICATING IN
HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE
ORGANISATIONS

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
1.2 Use of communication skills in health care..........................................................................1
1.3 Methods to deal with inappropriate interpersonal skills.......................................................2
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................3
1.4 Using communication support user needs of health and social care.....................................3
3.1 Standard ICT software to support health and social care......................................................3
2.4 Methods which can improve interacting process..................................................................4
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................4
1.1 Various communication theories to explain health care.......................................................4
2.1 Cultural and value factors that effect communication process.............................................5
2.2 Legislation,character and code practice influence communication......................................6
2.3 Use of organisational system and policies for promoting communication...........................6
3.2 Benefits of ICT in health care organisation..........................................................................7
3.3 Legal considerations in use of ICT impacts..........................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Communication plays an important role with respect to administration of various
activities and most importantly for building the positive working environment inside the
organisation. There is high needs of communication process which is very significant for health
and social sector (Bradley, Curry and Devers, 2007). These methods basically help them to focus
on fulfilling needs to patients and service users. This report is based on National Health Service
in name of national wellness services of England, Scotland and Wales. Their founding principles
are all-encompassing, worldwide and free at a point of delivery. Main purpose of this report is to
explain different types of communicating techniques for understanding the pattern and level of
communication in this organisation. There can be at times inappropriate interpersonal
communication that exist in welfare and societal care. Also in this report it has observed that
values and cultural factors influence communication process a lot and even the legislation,
characters and code of practice has certain impacts on it. ICT is also used for taking care of
workers and for providing service to organisation. Legal considerations are also present to effect
on health and social care.
TASK 1
1.2 Use of human activity skills in health care.
There can be so many ways to use communication, this may include verbal
communication as well as non verbal, also writing and listening. There are many uses of these
communication techniques in health and social care department. Verbal training is required when
giving information or performing some kind of training on either telephone or hand over talking
or even face to face talking (Bennett and ed., 2010). There are certain things which need to be
considered while performing verbal training. The tone of voice, pitch of sound, the voice
modulation and need to be little careful about patience while dealing with client of NHS.
While talking about non verbal communication which is used in cases where there clients
is not able to hear or listen to any verbal talking. These are those people who basically have
difficulty in hearing, or either deaf and mute. For these people there is requirement of special
training to communicate with these people. It includes facial expression, lip sing, making actions
and patterns to make them understand and also through writing formats there can be used to chat
to such clients. There needs to certain skills that can adopt these methods of communicating.
1

There can be use of signal, picture cards and connection board and even writing pad to make the
task easy and supportive.
The art of good listening is tough and rarely some people have it. But it needs to be
developed so that they can easily analyse what the project all about. It can be improved through
talking to clients as much as possible and even express one self to others to even improve
communication skills. Through all this transmission of information becomes very effective and
this can be done by getting message across all the parts of the globe and it can be reflected on the
parts of the message being received and then easily understood or not (Berwick, Nolan, and
Whittington, 2008).
1.3 Methods to deal with inappropriate interpersonal skills.
For properly using the advantages of good abstraction skills in this health and cultural
care sector there is requirement of this firm to be able to deal with any kind of inappropriate
activities that come into existence with time. There would be so many barriers which come in
communication practice and to deal with that very effectively decided the efficiency of that
organisation. Like for example there can be any restriction to communication that should be
resolved else it may turn into a misunderstanding concept in the professional field and that would
generate a lot of problems in later times. Mostly the factors which adversely affect
communication very often is culture and language. There is quite possible for this health and care
department to have so many professionals which belong to different culture, caste creed and sex.
It is their responsibility to see that there should not be any quarrel or conflicts between people
due to this heterogeneity. Religion is also a strong factor which could hurt a person or agitate an
individual's feeling from inside but these factors are to be removed (Damron and Damron, 2013).
Another factor which is responsible for miss communication in context of this health
sector is privacy. There would be patients which are private individual and their records need to
be held with proper privacy and confidentiality and so that's why there is no presence of breach
or interference in the details of these record because the organisation has found a proper method
of safe guarding the information of patients. There is primary duty of patients to not bring out
any kind of data without the approval of that individual or group whose information has been
asked for. If there would be lack of trust from the patients side on the this health and care centre
then it would act as a main barrier to effective communication of this organisation NHS. Lack of
knowledge is also considered as one more restriction to communication process.
1

TASK 2
Covered in PPT
TASK 3
1.1 Various communication theories to explain health care.
There are various concepts present in wellbeing and social care (Epstein, R.M., Fiscella,
Lesser and Stange, 2010). These are behaviouristic theory, operative conditioning theory,
cognitive theory and social learning theory.
Behaviourist theory: It is the process in which acquisition is based on thought that are
action which is acquired through learning (Demiris, 2006). The main source of this theory is
process in which all types of activity is largely based on learning consequence for any type of
specific reaction. This may explain method of language acquisition that include echoic response
in which an infant is basically imitating sound of health and social professional. This actually
reinforces behaviour of infant.
Operant conditioning: It is connected with theory of Skinner. There are two types of
strengthen. Positive as well as negative. In the positive one there can be consequences which
follow a particular behaviour that is experienced as required. In the negative one there is
requirement of behaviour results which basically removes something that might b unpleasant.
Mostly the reinforcement has a negative influence because it brings unpleasant making of
environment which makes the person feel bad and uncomfortable about the overall services
which provided to that individual.
Cognitive theory: It is mainly responsible for obtaining more message through
experimental learning. Just like a parent would nurture their children which can be influenced
with biological factors for the ways that child should behave in future.
Social learning: This theory combined with those concepts that are associated with
psycho people that too not from mind only but also by entire feelings from inside, their thoughts
and experiences.
2.1 Cultural as well as value factors that effect communication process.
Culture consist of ideas, customer and even social background of society (Ishikawa and
Yano, 2008). There is a creation and influence of human transmission from one generation to
another through parents, teachers, religious leaders and even respected people older ones. Being
1

a health worker in this organisation it is the duty of these people to take care and respect every
type of people, culture, background and even beliefs. Whenever there are times when some
cultures is being violated or been ignored, then people tend to react about it with anger and
emotional feelings. There are at times when there can be two people who tends to be friend of
each other but due to lack of knowledge of other person's culture that leads to distance among
their friendship. They cannot understand or observe their body language. But for a person
working in wellness and cultural care sector they need to understand and observe every type of
individual of different culture or diversity.
2.2 Legislation,character and code practice influence communication.
Legislation is basically considered as set of laws that are made by government and even
house of parliament (Kamel Boulos and Wheeler, 2007). It describes mostly how people live and
basically helps in improving lives of people and even determine policy framework. This
establishment is usually left with no alternative other than to precede stipulations such as legal
requirement in context of their practice. One of the major aspect by which legislation and
charters basically influence human activity techniques that can be bestowed by fact that allow
condition of sameness. There are some existent laws which govern the practice of health and
social care that is based on generality of sameness that does not allow discrimination of any
person, it may be a patient or a well-being and societal worker.
Data protection Act 1998: This law is required to control on an individual's personal
information which can be used by this organisation NHS. Some important data laws can
influence the manner in which company tries to communicate with service users. All the health
care worker responsible for using this data, needs to follow some strict rule and regulation which
is called data protection principle. This law basically speaks about confidentiality factor where
any kind of information in computer, paper, visually and audio records should not be disclosed to
any one at any condition without the permission of the diligent. Service users may sometimes
exhibit loss of trust from work providers in case there would be any loss of information or data
has been leaked. That's why it makes crucial for laws to provide protection for such conditions.
Some legislation are also made basically to provide equivalence and anti-discrimination in the
place of work. All these factors are actually responsible for formation of human action practice
and activities of people in health and social care.
1

2.3 Use of organisational policies and system for promoting communication.
For attraction of people working in the environment to be effectively and efficiently
participate in the communication process then one factor which is considered as very essential is
the organisational systems and its policies for working procedure. These policies are priceless as
it can shape the communication activities and make it more appropriate. This organisation needs
to create group and argumentation that foster good communication. There is requirement of
factors like evolution of changing and precocious information group which will cause
effectiveness and efficiency in various activities that would be undertaken (Kreps and
Neuhauser, 2010). If these systems are not present then it can be highly difficult to transfer and
share information which are very significant in this profession. The policies which are used by
this NHS:
Whistle Blowing Policy: These policy basically gives some guidance to all members of
the staff very clearly regarding the correct step for bringing attention of wrong deeds or wrong
work which might harm the reputation of the firm to such extent.
Bullying in workplace: Every one wishes to work in the situation which is at large from
any kind of blustery, annoyance or even intimidation from any other colleagues of management.
By creating a sustainable, supportive and stimulating working environment it would enable the
force to utilize their work and fulfil their private as well as profession potential.
Prevention of accidents: This is the whole responsibility of this health and social care
firm to ensure all reasonable steps for precautions and to maintain safe and healthy working
condition. It consist of all the statutory requirements and codes of practice.
TASK 4
3.2 Benefits of ICT in health care organisation.
Use if this ICT has great impacts and usually positive impacts in the battlefield of well-
being and social group as it has brought many benefits and advantages to this cited organisation.
One of the major benefit of this is that it has accuracy records. By the use of various application
of information technology it can be easier for staff to provide an answer for concern of their
patients.
These wellness occupational group are also enjoying these types of facilities provided by
message and human activity technology because these allow them to harmless, modern and
speedy IT system which basically help them in their routine and then allow them to utilize time
1

more expeditiously and basically with expectation of continuous monitoring (Moorhead, Hazlett
and Hoving, 2011).
ICT is also useful beneficial in the fields of health and care department as it tries to meet
all the needs of the individuals. It provides easy system of administration for treatment process
and so making the process to be more efficient and even more accurate.
3.3 Legal considerations in use of ICT impacts.
For ensuring ICT to be at its maximum usage and not to be detrimental for the society
purposes then certain legislation are very essential for both internal and external factors of this
company NHS to exist to govern these practices in the real life situation. Data Protection Act
provides some kind of limitation and disadvantage on the use of and access of personal
information. Especially in those cases when the client or forbearing is asking for some privacy
(Nembhard and Edmondson, 2006).
Another statute law which assumed to be significant for the use of info and
communicating technology is the Act of Personal Files 1987. This basically stipulates some
normal thinking with respect to access face-to-face information. It also contain those data
specially which relate to social services.
One more essential civil law is Access to Health Record Act 1990. This one is concerned
more about records which can be manually accession easygoing. It gives clients and even any
other member some rights by which they can access to medical record in any form possible, else
they all are prohibited (Oxman, Lewin, Lavis and Fretheim, 2009).
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it has been analysed that there can be various communication
theories to understand communication system. There is various uses of these theories in this
department. There can be some strategies that are required to help specific communication needs.
Using this process is influenced by values and cultural factors. In this report there is discussion
about organisational system and policies which basically promote good communication practice.
Use of ICT software package for supporting of this system and its benefits. Some of the legal
considerations are also present which impact health care department.
1

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bradley, E.H., Curry, L.A. and Devers, K.J., 2007. Qualitative data analysis for health services
research: develop
Bennett, P. ed., 2010. Risk communication and public health. Oxford University Press.
Berwick, D.M., Nolan, T.W. and Whittington, J., 2008. The triple aim: care, health, and cost.
Health affairs. 27(3). pp.759-769.ing taxonomy, themes, and theory. Health services
research. 42(4). pp.1758-1772.
Damron, W.S. and Damron, W.S., 2013. Introduction to animal science: global, biological,
social, and industry perspectives.
Demiris, G., 2006. The diffusion of virtual communities in health care: concepts and challenges.
Patient education and counseling. 62(2). pp.178-188.
Epstein, R.M., Fiscella, K., Lesser, C.S. and Stange, K.C., 2010. Why the nation needs a policy
push on patient-centered health care. Health affairs. 29(8). pp.1489-1495.
Ishikawa, H. and Yano, E., 2008. Patient health literacy and participation in the health‐care
process. Health Expectations. 11(2). pp.113-122.
Kamel Boulos, M.N. and Wheeler, S., 2007. The emerging Web 2.0 social software: an enabling
suite of sociable technologies in health and health care education. Health Information &
Libraries Journal. 24(1). pp.2-23.
Kreps, G.L. and Neuhauser, L., 2010. New directions in eHealth communication: opportunities
and challenges. Patient education and counseling. 78(3). pp.329-336.
Moorhead, S.A., Hazlett, D.E., Harrison, L., Carroll, J.K., Irwin, A. and Hoving, C., 2013. A
new dimension of health care: systematic review of the uses, benefits, and limitations of
social media for health communication. Journal of medical Internet research. 15(4).
Nembhard, I.M. and Edmondson, A.C., 2006. Making it safe: The effects of leader inclusiveness
and professional status on psychological safety and improvement efforts in health care
teams. Journal of Organizational Behaviour .27(7). pp.941-966.
Oxman, A.D., Lewin, S., Lavis, J.N. and Fretheim, A., 2009. SUPPORT Tools for evidence-
informed health Policymaking (STP) 15: Engaging the public in evidence-informed
policymaking. Health research policy and systems. 7(1). p.S15.
Reeves, S., Lewin, S., Espin, S. and Zwarenstein, M., 2011. Interprofessional teamwork for
health and social care (Vol. 8). John Wiley & Sons.
Reeves, S., Zwarenstein, M., Goldman, J., Barr, H., Freeth, D., Hammick, M. and Koppel, I.,
2008. Interprofessional education: effects on professional practice and health care
outcomes. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 1(1).
Street, R.L., Gold, W.R. and Manning, T.R. Eds., 2013. Health promotion and interactive
technology: Theoretical applications and future directions. Routledge.
Swayne, L.E., Duncan, W.J. and Ginter, P.M., 2012. Strategic management of health care
organizations. John Wiley & Sons.
Wilson, P.A. and Yoshikawa, H., 2007. Improving access to health care among African-
American, Asian and Pacific Islander, and Latino lesbian, gay, and bisexual
populations. The health of sexual minorities. pp.607-637.
Online
1

Theories of Communicatiion in Health and Social Care. 2017. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.ukessays.com/essays/communications/communicating-in-health-and-
social-care-organizations-communications-essay.php>. [Accessed on 3nd August
2017].
1