Inter-Agency Working: Analysis of Cultural Needs and Information Sharing in Health and Social Care

Inter-Agency Working

Contents
INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................................3
Question 1..................................................................................................................................................3
Analysis of the multiple factors in the case study and with reference to the differing cultural needs in
communities in the UK, particularly when to share information.............................................................3
Explain how information sharing is perceived as a cultural issue and how it impacts on the delivery of
health and social care...............................................................................................................................5
Key agencies that would be involved in dealing with this complex case.................................................6
Question 2..................................................................................................................................................8
Attributes of an effective multi-disciplinary team in dealing with this situation and the effect of
leadership within the team, particularly when there’s need to share information, given Ted
circumstances..........................................................................................................................................8
Critically analyze the type of skills a leader should possess to support the team as well as Ted?..........10
Question 3................................................................................................................................................11
Reflection on what you have learnt in relation to working with the differing cultural needs of the
communities involved............................................................................................................................11
Identify what areas of practice you need to develop in order to work well with a multi-cultural
community and in a multi-disciplinary team.........................................................................................11
CONCLUSION........................................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES........................................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Elderly people require support with their day to day activities so that they can lead a
healthy and happy life without any worries (Calder and Horwath, 2018). This assignment is
about Mary, an elderly woman and her husband Ted. Mary uses the council bus in order to do
her weekly shopping. Because Ted is frail and vulnerable, Mary has to tie her husband to a chair
in the house. Since Mary does not wants that she and her husband to be put into a nursing home,
she ties her husband whenever she goes out. The assignment is based on inter-agency working
and analyses the multiple factors with reference to the different cultural needs of different
communities in the UK. Information sharing is perceived as a cultural issue in some
communities and can impact the delivery of health and social care. The assignment includes a
description of challenges as well as opportunities based on Ted’s condition. The assignment also
includes a description of principles of care ethics as well as the different factors that make up an
effective multi-disciplinary team. Lastly, a reflective model has been used in order to reflect
upon the issues that have been identified in the case.
Question 1
Analysis of the multiple factors in the case study and with reference to the differing cultural
needs in communities in the UK, particularly when to share information
Cultural needs can be referred to as preferences that are rooted in the social and ethnic
identity of a person. As identified in the case study, Mary is an elderly woman who lives with her
husband, Ted. Ted is frail and vulnerable, which means that he is at a high risk of serious harm.
Inter-agency working means families and agencies coming together in order to solve the problem
of interdependency (Edwards, 2017). There can be certain challenges involved in inter-agency
working, as in context of the given case study, the socioeconomic status of some people is not
very high. Mary had lost weight and was facing issues with living with her vulnerable husband
alone. And the reason behind this was that she did not want to be put into a nursing home.
Another challenge for Mary is that her husband’s health is vulnerable and she cannot take care of
him alone for a very long period of time.
On analyzing the given case study, it has been observed that the patient requires support
from the care assessment team. The patient can also be provided with support collaboratively

with the help of other agencies. The challenges in the same can include issues with fundraising,
because the socioeconomic status of Mary as well as Ted is not very high. A lack of efficient
communication from the side of agencies involved can also lead to posing challenges. Also, there
can be a case wherein the agency or the council and the local health service team, whom Gill has
contact might be reluctant to provide support to Mary and Ted. Whenever Mary has to go out for
weekly shopping, she has to tie her husband, Ted to a chair as there are chances that he might
walk away and hurt himself. In order to avoid this situation. The culture of the other people who
use the service as well as their personal values might be different from that of Ted and Mary.
The United Kingdom is one of the most culturally diverse countries, wherein different
communities have different cultural needs (Foster and et. al., 2017). Besides many challenges,
there are also certain opportunities that are involved in inter-agency working. If multiple
agencies will come to support Mary and Ted, it will be helpful as there will be strengthening in
their partnership. Not only this, they can pool the budgets so that both the elderly people do not
face any kind of difficulties. The coverage along with the sustainability of services will increase.
These factors can have a significant impact on the healthcare delivery, for example if the
agencies will be reluctant to engage in providing the support to old people, they won’t be able to
receive the necessary help for the vulnerable condition. This can lead to the health condition
getting affected more in an adverse manner. As far as the challenge of fundraising is concerned,
if this problem continues, there will be a reduction in the donations from individual people.
It has also been observed that Gill, who is the manager of the volunteer who reported the
information regarding the concerned people, consulted her friend in an aged care assessment
team. Gill herself decided to proceed with the referral and did not consider seeking consent from
both Mary as well as Ted. While her intentions were good, she should still have spoken to Mary
and Ted about the same and only gone forward with this and shared the information with the care
assessment team, if they had agreed (Green and et. al., 2019). This was important because it can
be seen in the case study that Mary was not in the favor of seeking help from anyone because
they thought that she and her husband, Ted might be put into a nursing home. This is why before
sharing any kind of information with the aged care assessment team; gill should have spoken
about the same to Mary.