Contemporary Issues in Health and Social Care

Contemporary Issues in Health and Social Care
CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE
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Contemporary Issues in Health and Social Care
Introduction
The industry of health and social care (HSC) occupies a significant part of the
society. This industry is recognized as the backbone of a healthy country in its
contribution to the society’s medical and care services. As any industry must interact
with its external environment, the HSC interacts with other industries such as the media
in the dissemination of HSC related information. In most cases, the way the public
receives and acts on information depends on the manner in which the media present
that information to the public domain. To provide a better understanding of how the HSC
system interacts with the public, this paper will provide a report based on cancer
disease. The report will be more of a discuss of the way issues related to HSC that are
of public concern get to reach the public through media.
1. PART I
1.1. How information relating to HSC reaches the public domain
According to (Alzheimer’s Society, 2018), the UK has 850,000 individuals suffer
with dementia, one in every six are aged over 80 years, and 70% of all the people with
dementia suffer from severe mental problems. Another issue spotted by (Oliver and
consultant in geriatrics and acute general medicine, 2016) is that people suffering with
dementia were occupying about a quarter of hospital beds in acute care.

Contemporary Issues in Health and Social Care
In England, it is a legal principle HSC systems communicate effectively to the
public (Great Britain et al., 2013). In meeting this principle, a study by (Hawker, 2010)
revealed that 40% of the UK healthcare organizations were using social media to reach
their HSC information to the public. In the case of dementia, the authors in (Robillard et
al., 2013) analyzed Twitter interaction. The study found that there were tweets from
health organizations that redirected to those health organization websites where they
talked about the risk management of Alzheimer’s disease and its attack on the ageing
population. In addition, in the current time when there is scarcity of professionals and an
ever-increasing number of dementia patients, the use of media particularly the social
media can improve communications and at the same time ease the burden on the side
of therapists and caregivers. Information regarding healthy lifestyle, nutrition, and
exercises can easily be shared in the media.
1.2. Different techniques for HSC Information Dissemination
Dissemination of health information to the public can take various means. Some
of the common methods that have been in use include radio, posters, leaflets, phone
messages, pamphlets, newspapers, health websites, TV, social media sites such as
Twitter and Facebook etc. All these techniques have been used by the government to
communicate HSC policies in various ways.
For instance, the social network sites are offering the quickest opportunities for
reaching out to the patients, health care professionals and the public. This is one the
techniques that is facilitating public access to HSC information and health policies. On
the other hand, the same sites such as twitter have been found to have some influence
on UK government health policies such as vaccination (McNeill et al., 2016).

Contemporary Issues in Health and Social Care
Other techniques used are such as the use of websites to convey health
information. This techniques has been pushed more by the implementation of the e-
Government is government social media platform that ensures transparency and
accountability, co-production, and democratic participation (Kolsaker and Lee‐Kelley,
2008).
Another technique is the use of the traditional media For instance, the work of
(Haghpanahan et al., 2017) informs that mass media campaigns through TV is one of
the tools that the UK healthcare used to spread nicotine quitline information. The results
of this study found that television was effective in activating calls to quitting smoke, but it
did not cause a significant effect in calling people to embrace the nicotine replacement
therapy.
1.3. Different ways HSC information influences the attitudes,
thoughts, and behaviors
The manner in which HSC information is presented can elicit various such as
attitudes, behaviors or thoughts from the public. Studies have shown different ways of
presenting HSC information can cause different reactions from the public. For instance,
the work of (Gough et al., 2017) intended to test for the feasibility of the design,
implementation, and an assessment of a social media-based skin cancer prevention
intervention. The study showed that social media dissemination elicited reactions such
as shock, humor and other behavioral changes such as attitudes of the participants
towards cancer screening and participants also started taking protective measures.
Further, a content Analysis to see the efficacy of Twitter in disseminating cancer
information was conducted in three countries, the USA, Canada, and the UK (Hawker,