Analysis of Health and Social Care

This assignment provides an in-depth analysis of various aspects of health and social care. It covers topics such as the Affordable Care Act, interprofessional teamwork, quality of life instruments, and the role of consumers in healthcare. The document also includes a list of references to academic papers and books related to the subject.

Facilitating Changes in Health
and Social Care

INTRODUCTION
In the present scenario, there are several changes that are going on in the health & social
care sector. This may be due to the change in society’s cultural dynamics or may be due to the
advancements in this sector. It has become important for the organisations to manage their
services so as to grow in their future (Abu-Rish and et. al., 2012). Change management is a
process that is done by making a particular strategy. There are several organisations that are
operational in the UK which help people and society in maintaining their health. It is very
important that these organisations itself work in a proper way. Royal United Hospital Bath NHS
Trust is one such enterprise that provide these kind of services in many regions of England. This
report highlights the ways in which these changes have caused, evaluated in longer duration and
used critically. It also provides the idea about impact of these changes. It will help to understand
the change factors or drivers as well.
TASK 1
1.1 Key factors that drives changes in the health and social care services.
There are numerous factors that drives the change in organisation. These can be internal
and external that could cause these alterations in organisations of health & social care. One of
major techniques of doing external analysis is to use PEST factor. It is one of the best methods to
understand this.
 Political: There are several policies regarding the health and social care that is changed
by governments time to time and these changes need to be implemented by organisations.
There are certain health and social care regulatory bodies which act as a government
representative in this sector like NICE which stands for National Institute for Health and
Clinical and Healthcare Excellence and CQC which stands for Care Quality Commission.
CQC checks or say accounts the quality related to firms that are in the business of health
& social care (Andrews and et. al., 2013). There are certain regulations posed by the
government. In this regard, the most important is Health care act 1999 and health and
social care act 2001 along with NHS as well as community care act 1990. These are some
of the legal structures that start the alterations in health care organisations
 Economical: The economic factors such as funding for health & social care is one of the
major concerns that brings the changes in these organisations. Some of the elements in
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this regard are taxation and inflation rate. In order to ensure cash flow in these
organisations, there are several changes made by these organisations. Royal United
Health hospital has to manage its financial resources so as to maintain its budget
requirement.
 Social: the societies around the globe is changing and so is the life style. This has bring
organisations to make considerable amount of changes, There are very different kind of
diseases that are coming up in the society these companies have to make these types of
changes so as to tackle these epidemics (Antheunis, Tates and Nieboer, 2013).
 Technologies: There are several kinds of advancements that are going on in the
technological means in the health and social care organisations. Computerised
machineries, Robotic arms for operations are some of the technologies that are important
for these to implement. They have to invest a lot on these so as to provide best quality
services to its clients.
There are certain internal factor that also leads to change in these sectors. They are as
follows:
 Leadership change: many a times there had been leadership changes that are taking
place in the cited organisation whose decision making leads to changes in the
organisational processes.
 Process Engineering; There are certain process that are going on in these organisations
such as the methodologies for treating patients
 Other than this there are many other internal factors such as employee’s attitude,
organisational structural change like introduction of new departments in the Royal United
Hospital, new training systems.
1.2 Challenges that key factors of changes bring to health and social care services.
There are various kinds of challenges that are posed by the factors mentioned above. All
these factors and its implications needs to be examined. This may consist resistance of the
employees in operating towards the goals and the financial problems related to budget. Other
factors that may arise in this situations such as time. Budget, problems associated with resources
allocation. There is large amount of budgets that is allocated for these organisations but many of
the budgets do not come on the ground as they remain in the development stage due to their own
policies (Braveman, Egerter and Williams, 2011). Sometimes, there is case when they do not get
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higher sponsorship for their project which lead to poor quality of service delivery. There are
various internal organisational activities like training of staffs, purchasing of machineries that
helps in the bringing changes also requires budgets is not managed properly. Some of the other
factors such as inflation results in poor quality of medical services.
There are certain changes in the population and demography such as incidence rates of a
suddenly arrived disease all needs to be managed. It can cause situation where people are unable
to support this situation. There organisations do not have such large resources so as to facilitate
so many peoples e4specially when any kind of disease is widely spread in the society. Changes
in the technologies are so fast that they have to inculcate at regular basis and proper training on
these matters need to be provided (Coleman and et. al., 2012). The change in the organisational
structure and important issues such as their payments need to be adapted. These all factors leads
to identify the low quality practices and objectives cannot be achieved in time.
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TASK 2
2.1 Strategy and criteria for measuring recent changes in health and social care.
There are several criteria which are needed for evaluating successfulness of the change
process in the cited organisation. Some of them are as follows:
 Service that users get after the changes have been made as well as satisfaction the user
used to get before these applied changes.
 Some of the parameters of quality such as mortality rate, Mistake rate, control of
infections spread at practice to identify if have been impacted by the changes.
 Changes applied in the firm from the employee perspective or not.
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sources 1: Commisioning cycle resources

 Re view the employee performance to identify if their performance have increased or
decreased after the changes have been applied (Creek and Lougher, 2011).
 Employee turnover rate to identify if the change initiation has caused has resulted in a
positive manner or negative way.
There are certain tactics and methods that will be used for accumulating information in
relation to these alterations.
 Consultation with the users in a structured manner.
 Through the use of questionnaire.
 Analysis of workers performance.
 Audit of organisation to count mistake rates and mortality rates.
Strategies includes gathering information which can be done by making questions such as;
 Has the timing to remain in the queue, waiting time and document process time have
improved after these changes or not.
 Has check-up services been developed as per your views.
 How convenient and efficient was the service to the user.
 Comments for further improvement.
These questionnaires to the employees helps to retrieve information such as:
 If the organisation made changes has helped to make the work easier.
 If the staffs are able to provide the user in a improved way with the changes applied
(Fotaki, 2011).
2.2 Impact of recent changes on the health and social care services against set criteria.
Changes that apply for the health & social care enterprises like Rural United Hospital
Bath NHS Trust can influence on the employee who are working in different departments and
sections of these organisations (Lober and Flowers, 2011). Recent changes that have been made
in the record system of hospital was implemented. As per the new system the employees in the
front line of the organisation and helped in increasing the productivity and efficiency. Employee
satisfaction levels have been on higher after the implementation of computerised technology.
Due to these computerised systems patients are able to get the tickets in 10- 15 minutes
which reduced there queuing time. Since the use of computerised system has been implemented
in the organisation so recording of patient’s data can be easily done which took a long time when
earlier manual methods are applied. It has resulted in the overall performance up-gradation of the
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organisation. As per the staff member the system has become more organised as well as
structured in a proper manner so that users do not have to waste their time in registration and
admitting to the health care centres. Family members are the indirect users and have been
benefited from this process as their patients are receiving services as per their need.
2.3 Overall impact of recent changes in the health and social care
Many kinds of influences that have occurred due to the alterations in the health & social
care organisations. Examining of these impacts is necessary (Makai and et. al., 2014). There
were several impacts that is on Royal United Hospital Bath NHS Trust after their made changes
which is as follows:
 It was identified that waiting time in queues and time that was spent by the patients in the
organisation has been reduced due to the implementation of new computerised systems
that manages data very well. In the past, waiting time has resulted in the dissatisfied
customers which ultimately frustrated their family members and patients and their family
members expects that they will get the medical attention quickly. As the new system has
reduced burden of waiting in a queue as the new system is far more flexible than previous
one and can serve more number of patients at a time (cKeown, Malihi-Shoja and Downe,
2011). This resulted in a manner that was expected by the organisations. This has also
made to attend large number of people at the same time when any epidemics and disease
spreads.
 One of the other impacts that resulted in a positive way is the increase in the productivity
of the workers in every kind of department of organisation. They are able to utilise the
computer system to register new patients and allocating numbers to the patients in which
they will be attended. The employees will accomplish their targets due to their increased
efficiency and productivity from which hospitals will be benefited from the impact
(Mechanic, 2012). From the perspective of management about the influence of alterations
the efficiency increment and cunsumer satisfaction will be achieved.
2.4 Appropriate service responses to recent changes in health and social care.
There are many service issues in the health care organisations. Issues include not having
proper hydration bundle policy in the Royal United Hospital Bath NHS Trust health care centre.
It helps in administering the hydration intake of the service users, Poor record keeping systems
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as well as procedures for record keeping, not respecting the dignity of the service users by the
staffs and also lack of supervision from the mangers of firm. In order to confront these issues and
provide response to these in the future have been known and several steps have been taken in this
direction.
There must be a training session for the employees on ethical considerations of their work
and information about the way in which they will serve the users so that their dignity can be
protected. These type of training can be given by the authority of the hospital or the NMC or
CQC.
Another response that can be provided is changing the structure of the management of the
health care organisation. By altering the structure of management there would be managers that
will be capable to have managers who will supervise the service all the time and provide support
for the staffs to provide an developed services to the customers.
TASK 3
3.1 Key principles of change management
Change management is a procedure in which enterprise plan, organise and implement
various activities as per the pre decided plans, rules and structure of firm (Munn-Giddings and
Winter, 2013). Lewis model of change, kotter's 8 step model of change, ADKAR are some of the
popular and most used methods by organisations.
ADKAR model can be used by Royal united hospital bath NHS trust for implement
change management process. As per this model desire, awareness, ability, knowledge and
reinforcement are some of the main factors of change management procedures. In awareness
phase, managers included in change management process focus on enhancing awareness
regarding the change among all individuals of employees of organisation included in change
process. After that workers evaluate how the quality of firm's services is decreasing because of
not having proper recording system. After that workers communicate about the benefits they will
get after application of change. For example if employees get training about how to record the
data than worker will than understand this and this will lead to save their time and will enhance
their efficiency.
This will move a desire among workers about the changes. Third & fourth element of this
model is ability and knowledge. In third phase workers are provided with knowledge about how
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to use record systems. Relevant documents and information are given to them about how record
system work. After that all workers get information about new record system. After that, in
ability part, finally the record system is introduce and practical training is given to them like how
to utilise it with users of this service. This is known as practical portion of implementation of
record system. Next and last principle is retaining the changes apply by support and management
further aid is given to employees when they face any issues or problems (Reeves and et. al.,
2011).
As per lewin's model of change basically there are three steps or phase included in the
process of change which can be used by enterprises. First is unfreeze in which managers of firm
make the enterprise ready to accept changes. After this step change is introduce is enterprise
training are given to workers to learn about new things and methods. Refreeze is the last steps in
this employees are encouraged to use new methods and process for doing the work.
3.2 Changes in health and social care are planned
Main approaches and consideration which must be taken care by Royal united hospital
bath NHS trust include the following:
 Stakeholder analysis can be one of the method in which enterprise will try to identify all
its stakeholders. Main advantage of doing this is that this make the management inform
about the requirements, expectations, of stakeholders. Further give various ideas of
improvements from different perspectives of service users which can be used by
management at the time of design change (Riekert, Ockene and Pbert, 2013).
 Consultation of various groups such as CQC and NHS also help to point the general areas
of improvements which further guide in make the plans accordingly.
 Communication between employer, supplier, service user and various individual is
another method which help to identify their expectations and need. This helps to make
better service system in enterprise.
 Feedback from service users must be encourage by firm because this will help
management in know about the issues face by them during consumption stage. In this
way management can do efforts to increase convenience level of customers can better
satisfy their needs and wants.
All these are the main ways which can be used by organisation to propose change in its
services and to better implement the change management process.
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3.3 Ways in which the recent changes can be monitored in the Royal United Hospital Bath NHS
Trust.
It is important to understand that any alterations made in any organisation should have to
be monitored. Monitoring of these activities will help the Royal United Hospital Bath NHS Trust
in evaluating it which will help in measuring the impact of these organisations (Street, Gold and
Manning, 2013). It is essential for determining that the changes made are in the same order or
not that will help in achieving the targets set by the organisation. It also helps in determining that
changes have facilitated growth in the same manner as previously estimated or not. The service
user’s satisfaction level identification can be done by conducting interviews or by the use of
surveys using questionnaires to the users of this service. Taking the view point of staffs like
whether they have been benefited from these changes or not, whether their operation mechanism
has smoothed or not and whether they are able to provide proper services to the user or not.
These observations are to be done by management of the organisation . It will help in
assessing the impact of service they receive or provide. Installation of new monitoring system
with advanced technologies will help management in making their observations process easier as
well as computerised system will help in reducing the time that patients spent in the queues as
well as in filling of forms multiple times (Monitoring adult social care services. 2017). The
patients can be attended carefully at a speed that is expected by them. It would increase the
referral rates at firm and consumer satisfaction indexes can be utilised to measure the alterations
that are applied at Royal United Hospital Bath NHS. All these factors will help company in
measuring that changes have been successfully implemented.
CONCLUSION
From the above based report, it can be concluded that there are several changes that are
going on in the firms which are in the business of serving people. All these changes needs to be
managed properly so as to confirm the growth of organisations in a sustainable manner. There
are several factors such as Economic, political Social, technical and several internal factors that
have impacted the operations of these firms . These factors are prime reasons for making
changes. There were many strategies that have been made so as to encounter these impacts due
to the factors mentioned above. There are certain key principles that have used in this regard so
as to manage these changes. Any changes made in the organisation of health & social care need
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to be planned as any sudden changes in it can reduce the efficiency of their whole operations. It
has been articulated from the report that changes have benefited the employees as well as
patients and their family members.
REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Abu-Rish, E. and et. al., 2012. Current trends in interprofessional education of health sciences
students: A literature review. Journal of interprofessional care. 26(6). pp. 444-451.
Andrews, C.M. and et. al., 2013. Social work and implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
Health & Social Work. 38(2). pp. 67-71.
Antheunis, M.L., Tates, K. and Nieboer, T.E., 2013. Patients’ and health professionals’ use of
social media in health care: motives, barriers and expectations. Patient education and
counseling. 92(3). pp. 426-431.
Braveman, P., Egerter, S. and Williams, D.R., 2011. The social determinants of health: coming
of age. Annual review of public health. 32. pp. 381-398.
Coleman, E. and et. al., 2012. Standards of care for the health of transsexual, transgender, and
gender-nonconforming people, version 7. International Journal of Transgenderism.
13(4). pp. 165-232.
Creek, J. and Lougher, L., 2011. Occupational therapy and mental health. Elsevier Health
Sciences.
Fotaki, M., 2011. Towards developing new partnerships in public services: users as consumers,
citizens and/or co‐producers in health and social care in England and Sweden. Public
Administration. 89(3). pp. 933-955.
Lober, W.B. and Flowers, J.L., 2011, August. Consumer empowerment in health care amid the
internet and social media. In Seminars in Oncology Nursing (Vol. 27, No. (3) pp. 169-
182). WB Saunders.
Makai, P. and et. al., 2014. Quality of life instruments for economic evaluations in health and
social care for older people: a systematic review. Social science & medicine. 102. pp. 83-
93.
McKeown, M., Malihi-Shoja, L. and Downe, S., 2011. Service user and carer involvement in
education for health and social care: Promoting partnership for health (Vol. 9). John
Wiley & Sons.
Mechanic, D., 2012. Seizing opportunities under the Affordable Care Act for transforming the
mental and behavioral health system. Health Affairs. 31(2). pp. 376-382.
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Munn-Giddings, C. and Winter, R., 2013. A handbook for action research in health and social
care. Routledge.
Reeves, S. and et. al., 2011. Interprofessional teamwork for health and social care (Vol. 8). John
Wiley & Sons.
Riekert, K.A., Ockene, J.K. and Pbert, L. eds., 2013. The handbook of health behavior change.
Springer Publishing Company.
Street, R.L., Gold, W.R. and Manning, T.R. eds., 2013. Health promotion and interactive
technology: Theoretical applications and future directions. Routledge.
Online
Monitoring adult social care services. 2017. [online]. Available through :
<http://www.cqc.org.uk/what-we-do/how-we-use-information/monitoring-adult-social-care-
services>. Accessed on 10th October 2017.
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