Health Communication and Patient Care

This assignment delves into the crucial role of effective communication in healthcare. It examines various strategies employed to ensure patient-centered care, including the use of social media for health communication, the importance of interprofessional teamwork, and the contributions of lay health workers in primary and community health settings. The assignment encourages a critical analysis of these approaches and their impact on patient outcomes.

INFLUENCES ON
HEALTH AND SOCIAL
CARE ORGANISATIONS

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................3
2.1................................................................................................................................................3
2.2................................................................................................................................................4
2.3................................................................................................................................................5
2.4................................................................................................................................................6
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................7
3.1................................................................................................................................................7
3.2 ...............................................................................................................................................8
3.3................................................................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Today the world is surrounded by the various controllable and non controllable diseases
which causes danger to the lives of the people and also effects the social environment of the
people thus it is the duty of the health organisation to take responsibility of the patients and
ensure their safety (Archer and et. al., 2011). The organisations like NHS (National Health
Service) the most popular and efficient health organisation in UK, is an independent body with
vast scope thus it is the duty of the leaders and managers to take responsibility to deal with the
well-known processes, like planning, budgeting, structuring and staffing jobs and measuring
performance and problem-solving, to achieve the required standards and goals i.e the goals to
improve health care facilities and ensure the patients safety (Barry and Edgman-Levitan, 2012).
TASK 1
Task 1 has been covered in ppt
TASK 2
2.1
An interview was being done with colleague, Janet who is having work experience of
senior social care worker for people who are troubled with problem of dementia. Her roles is
concerned with direct needs for care which are required by the patients. Her duties and
responsibilities consists of giving help to the service user to fulfil his or her day to day needs, to
monitor their needs of health and giving them autonomous life. The aim of this task is to gain
understanding of the influence of organisational structures in health and social care organisation.
Janet has been associated with a social care organisation in UK. From her experiences, it has
been determined that there are various types of organisational structures (Thompson Parrott and
Nussbaum, 2011). Structure of an organisation designs the culture of that organisation which
determines management's working style, employee's responsibilities. Structure and culture of
health care organisation are related with each other. Non profit organisational structure generally
consists of two classes of organisation, first one is voluntary organisation and second is social
enterprises. Social enterprise sets their objectives by the government. Their business have
objectives of maximisation of profits of the stakeholders such as staff and services users. They
offer services to services users and enable them to live a standard life.

On the other hand, in voluntary organisations individuals and groups are engaged with
their own interests and wish to provide their services to the community and society. They operate
by taking help of grants provided by the government and charities (Lewin and et. al., 2010).
However all the funds are not raised from only these sources. Individual work in such
organisation due to their own willingness to save lives of people who are in any pain or suffering
or to make their life better and happening. Janet being a senior health and social care worker
gained experience that communication and leadership play a vital role in handling activities and
tasks of social care organisations. Communication is essential in developing team work in health
and social care organisations. They are helpful in creating teams who perform together through
collaboration of their efforts. If the communication is effective and smooth among the team
members, then it is helpful in reduction of conflicts and disputes in them which in turn reduces
stress (Kahn Yang and Kahn, 2010). Contrary to this, voluntary organisation function on the
principle of providing services on their own choice by participating and communicating with
each other to collaborate their contributions and to develop deliveries of their services in an
effective manner.
2.2
In the health and social care organisation there are various competitive factors in the
culture of such organisations. The contradictory requirements of patients, family members,
services providers, institutions and regulators form various inconsistencies and mixes the
messages. Additionally, issues related to hierarchy in which every role or unit functions self-
reliantly with having no understanding of the entire implications of their actions and doings on
others. Many holds a view that culture of blame is dominant in health and social care
organisation. As medicines were mostly seen as the role of single physician or any other
professional who is working on a specific patient, when something goes wrong the natural
reaction is to try to identify who was wrong and trying to discipline them. This is called as
“shame and blame” approach which results in hiding instead of reporting mistakes (Hutchison
and et. al., 2011). This creates hurdles in the culture of safety in the health and social care
organisation. Some recent contributions are trying to change this culture- to inspire individuals to
report the errors instead of hiding them so that they can be solved. The organisations which have
forward thinking remembers that their prime ground for presence in this sector is to give proper
care and attention to the patient and ensure their health and safety. The increase in recognition of

organisational culture is essential as it contributes in the organisational effectiveness
(Macnamara and Zerfass, 2012). But most of the health and social care organisation prefers to
avoid it. Paying equal focus on human management needs different thinking ways and realises
that organisational culture offers a possible lever in improvement of daily routine lives of
employees. The organisational culture influence all perspective of organisational life. They are a
strong force which take individuals on a common platform and creates sense of cooperation and
division, stating what type of values and attitude are acceptable. The reliable indicators of
organisational culture are rumours and gossips. If a health and social care organisation desires to
make improvements in organisational culture requires to recognise that their personal doings and
attitude results in emotional reactions of employees (Reeves and et. al., 2011).
2.3
Behaviour of the individuals can't be static. Human Behaviour is dynamic and keeps on changing
with the changes in the social environment and its requirements. The various individual theories
could be explained as follows:
1. Maslow's Hierachy of needs: It is the theory proposed by the Abraham Maslow in 1943
to explain the motivational aspects of the humans. According to him every person has
some priorities and needs in their life and these wishes and priorities motivates them to strive in
the life (Bennett, 2010). This could be classified in the following points:
 Every person strive in the life for their basic needs first which is also called
psychological needs. This includes food, clothing, shelter and sex satisfaction. Once the
psychological needs have fulfilled the person moves to satisfy its safety needs.
 Safety needs includes the physical as well as mental safety where physical safety means
safety from war, natural disaster, family violence and child hood abuse and mental
safety includes post traumatic disorder. It also includes the financial as well as health
security (Du Pré, 2010). Here financial security means job security i.e. every person
chooses the job which provides the safeguards like insurance policies, provident finds,
after retirement pension scheme etc.
 After safety needs the humans run to fulfils its other wishes such as love and belongings.
It is a good saying happiness spreads by sharing it with others, therefore once the basic
and safety needs of the human beings are fulfilled, they search for social get together

with whom they can enjoy after the stressful work. So the work which satisfies this issue
for them and remove their loneliness and social anxiety attracts the person towards it.
 Humans wishes are endless so after the satisfaction of the above needs the humans are
motivated for self-esteem and self-respect. Low esteem or inferiority complex may
results to depression (Estrin and Sim, 2010).
Similarly group behaviour theory can be described by Tuckman theory as follows:
 Forming: The team is assembled and the task is given but all team members are
independent to work but have mutual trust on each other.
 Storming: In this phase the team members addresses their ideas to each other which
could lead to destruction and the relationship between the team members can come to
end because every person have their own ideas and self-esteem and if some one hurts
that esteem it could lead to destruction.
 Norming: In this phase the team has passed out the storming phase and thus team
members starts working with harmonious relations which could ultimately results in the
effective decision making and achievement of desired goal (Grajales III and et. al.,
2014).
2.4
Organisation culture means sharing of assumptions, values and believes which govern the
people of organisation. This determines how the employees interact with each other as well as
with their clients. Every organisation has their own beliefs and behaviour to interact with each
other. Healthcare system means an organisation like NHS which provides the health care
services to meet the health requirements of populations targetted.
There is a famous saying 'Prevention is better than cure' and thus it is the duty of the
organisation to have such environment and culture where the patients feels mentally secure and
safe between the staff and this is possible only by positive organisation culture prevails in the
organisation which renders their services effectively. The staff members, doctors and the patient
are unknown to each other but an invisible faith exists between them which every health
organisation should maintain in delivering their services. It means to take effective steps to
prevent errors in healthcare that can cause harm to patients. Here harm means injury, suffering,
disability or death which is mainly occurs due to inefficient healthcare system (Greene and et.
al., 2011). Tests, investigations and treatments provided to patients should be appropriate for

their condition, in timely and effective way. Clean surroundings and minimal risk of infection
should be taken into account and the equipments used to treat the patients should be safe and in
good condition.
Organisation structure includes every level of the organisation from top to bottom and
NHS need to have an interdependent network to fulfil their objectives to take responsibility of
the patients and ensure their safety. The health organisations are non profit organisations whose
major objectives is to provide social awareness and improve health care and outcome services
provided to the service users (Hutchison and et. al., 2011). The top most seniors of the
organisation need to develop effective strategies to overcome the challenges prevailing in the
country related to health care. Their should be effective implementation of these strategies by the
managers and leaders to deliver the services effectively. Organisational culture should be polite
and harmonious because it is a good saying that a patient gets half recovers if the nearby
environment is supportable and cool.
TASK 3
3.1
NHS, the National Health Service organisations is the non profit social organisations
whose objective is providing and improving health care services. It is the duty of managers and
leaders of the organisation to achieve and maintain desired goal. Leadership influences
organisational culture and ensures developing and implementing strategies in order to provide
the quality services to the patients. Leadership establishes clear vision and change that vision
into desired goal by providing information, knowledge and methods to all members and
developing positive environment between them. Leaders of the organisation ensure effective
coordination and integration of work with the team to achieve values and strategies planned. It is
their responsibility to develop positive environment and ensure the success of the organisation as
a whole (Kahn, Yang and Kahn, 2010).
NHS leaders emphasise on safe and high quality measures and ensure the constant
attendance of the both positive and negative feedback received from the patients at every level.
Since, lower level people in the organisation are in direct contact with all the patients so they
need to be highly organised and leaders are required to motivate them to work passionately for
their patients and hear the grievances of all patients and take effective steps to solve them or

communicate with their leaders for the same. Therefore, the staffs need to be encouraged, heard
and acted across the whole organisation by the leaders. NHS leaders appreciate its staff and other
team members for their high performances. This appreciation includes both emotional and
monitory benefits. They also effectively deal with the poor performances and aggressive,
inappropriate and unacceptable behaviours of the staff by the patients and ensure that this
mistake and behaviour will not be repeated again by any person in the organisation. Leaders
should monitor continuously and promote continuous development of knowledge, skills and
abilities of staff to improve quality of patient’s care and safety (Kitson and et. al., 2013). They
consistently encourage, motivate and reward innovation and introduce new and improved ways
of working. Health care services requires interdependent network of the organisations where
leaders of every department work together, and expands organisational boundaries and enhance
the overall patient care i.e. achievement of organisational goal as a whole rather than achieving
their own targets.
3.2
Leadership is the behaviour of individual enlightening the path to achieve desired
organisational goal. The key role of leadership is to direct its team members their respective
activities and closely examine them and give spontaneous feedback on their work. They also
ensure the improvement in the required task or goal to cope up with the changes required as per
the changing environment. Therefore, leadership theory is dynamic in nature which requires
continuous change to achieve the desired goal (Levinson, Lesser and Epstein, 2010). NHS could
consider following leadership theories to achieve its objective:
1. Transformational leadership: In this type of leadership, leaders identify the changes
required in the organisation, develop strategies accordingly and execute the strategies to
achieve goal with the help of group of people following the leader. It is a behavioural
style that has attribute to communicate his vision and explain the same to its group
members in an effective manner. Since NHS is the health and social organisation which
requires developed and efficient system to instantly cope up with the changes required.
Therefore, this type of leadership is more efficient for the organisation.
2. Collaborative Leadership: This leadership is most effective in the organisation where all
the departments of the company need to be inter-related with each other. Every
department and its leaders are required to work with the feeling of oneness across the

organisational boundaries to achieve organisational goal as a whole. NHS is the non-
profitable organisation dealing with patient safety and various other improved facilities,
thus it need to work mutually across organisational boundaries to fulfil social and health
care facilities for the social benefit of the country as a whole. Thus, leaders of NHS need
to work mutually for good and social cause (Lewin and et. al., 2010).
3. Conflict Management: since, NHS has the large inter connected and interdependent
networks thus leaders in such organisation has responsibility on their shoulders than in
other organisations because here the leaders need to develop mutual relations with other
departmental leaders and cooperate and coordinate with them as well. As every leader has
its own way of working and behaviour to achieve their targets but to work mutually, the
different strategies are required and implemented. NHS is efficiently working on this
leadership style to achieve their desire goals.
3.3
After detail description about the leadership and its influence on the social and health
organisation we can easily explain benefits of the leadership in the organisation which are as
follows:
1. The NHS leader repeatedly keep eye on organisational goals and its principles which
work as ethics for him to maintain quality services of the organisation and instantly reacts
on the variances occurs during operations at every level of the organisation and try to
remove them as quickly as he can (Macnamara and Zerfass, 2012).
2. NHS Leaders have effective communication skills in them which lead to positive
environment between him and its group members. He takes responsibility of all its
member's task, targets and behaviours on his shoulders and ensures effective results from
all.
3. NHS Leaders has clear vision of the goals to be achieved, so they can easily explain the
same to all its members showing the path to be followed to achieve it in best and
effective manner.
4. NHS Leaders have close eye on changing trends in the environment as well as the
changing organisational behaviour so that they can take instant steps and alter their paths
according to the changes required in goals or the organisational structure. Since, NHS is
the health and social care organisation so in this company the patient requirements keeps

on changing according to diseases prevailing in the region, thus the leaders of
organisation need to be in constant touch with environment and the patients to improve
the health care services spontaneously (Schulz and Nakamoto, 2013).
5. The major objective of NHS is to satisfy patients and improve health care facilities in the
region therefore the leaders of this organisation are capable to design their strategies and
make alteration as and when required.
6. NHS leaders have designed effective feedback mechanism which measures the
performance of staff members and appreciates them for their good performance and even
take strict actions for their unacceptable behaviour with the patients or other staff
member (Singer and et. al., 2011).
7. NHS leaders has also designed effective feedback mechanism for patients to know about
their suggestions, requirements and grievances so that effective steps could be taken
quickly to make reforms in plans to be implemented and improve the quality of the
existing plans.
8. NHS leaders provide time and space (physical and mental) in the organisation to its staff
to explore their ideas and share their knowledge with each other and creates positive
environment to achieve desired goal in the best effective manner (Street, Gold and
Manning, 2013).
CONCLUSION
Summing up the present report it can be concluded that it is essential to provide better
and effective services to care users. It aids them in getting better and effective medical facilities
and they becomes capable for coming out of their existing medical issues that are being faced by
them. External stakeholders gives impact on the health and social care organizations and due to
that overall operational activities of the enterprise gets affected. Diverse range of external
environmental factors that gives impact on the functional activities includes public and media
concerns, political issues, funding and resources issues, support provided by local government.
In addition to that potential impact on people including users of services and workers. Roles also
gets affected. Different approaches can be used that includes monitoring and inspections and
keeping record and statics, conformance and accountability. All the methods will help for
rendering better services and care to individuals in the care home. There are different types of
organizations that works in the health care industry that includes public, private, formal and in

formal. Functional areas of different organizations also differ from each other. Different types of
cultures are followed in the organization and it includes role culture, task culture, power culture,
overall functional activities of the enterprise gets influenced due to it.

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