Analysis of Communication Strategies in Health and Social Care at Bupa

This report examines communication strategies within the health and social care sector, using Bupa as a case study. It explores methods for handling inappropriate interpersonal communication, emphasizing the importance of feedback, training, and adapting to diverse patient needs, including those with deaf-blindness. The report analyzes the influence of values and cultural factors on communication, highlighting the impact of beliefs, age, sex, education, and social class. It assesses the effectiveness of organizational policies and systems in promoting good practices, such as respecting laws, providing training, and establishing communication norms. Furthermore, the report discusses ways to upgrade communication procedures, including the use of Makaton, technological aids, and human aids like translators. It also covers the use of standard ICT packages to support work, detailing the advantages for service users, care workers, and organizations, while also addressing legal considerations like the Data Protection Act and Health and Safety at Work Act. The report concludes with an overview of how legal considerations in the use of ICT impact on HSC.

Communication in Health
and Social care

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
1.3 Methods to deal with inappropriate interpersonal communication.......................................1
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................2
2.1 Influence of values and cultural factors on the activity of communication..........................2
2.3 Effectiveness of organisational policies and system to promote good practise....................3
2.4 Ways of upgrading communication procedure.....................................................................4
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................4
3.1 Use of standard ICT packages to support work in heath and social care..............................4
3.2 Advantages of using Information and communication technology......................................5
3.3 How legal consideration in the use of ICT impact on HSC..................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Communication can be simply defined as the procedure of making contacts with others in
order to understand their requirements and demands. This includes conveying and attaining
messages in a constant cycle. This uninterrupted repetition is considered as an eminent part of
relationships. The aim of the present report is to demonstrate the usage of communication skills
in terms of best health and social care providers named as Bupa. It is a multinational healthcare
group whose headquarter is situated in United Kingdom. They are serving around 32 million
users in approx 190 nations (Antheunis, Tates and Nieboer, 2013). This is explaining the
methodologies of handling improper interpersonal communication between workers present in
that HSC.
TASK 1
1.3 Methods to deal with inappropriate interpersonal communication
The interpersonal communication in context to HSC basically include two parties that is
care worker and patient. According to the concept of social exchange, each individual should
attempt to enhance the pleasurable feeling and minimise the adverse prospect which create
painfulness in them and therefore should involve in transaction with others in social group.
Several issues occur in Bupa while communicating since sometime most of the information
conveyed by workers is not understandable by the clients. Thus, it ought to be improved. The
key ways for handling inappropriate interpersonal communication are described below :
 Management of Bupa should look after constantly over behaviour or action of every work
forces constantly with the assistance of cameras.
 Forms of feedbacks must be available at the care venture for receiving insight and views
of consumers so that problems can be solved appropriately.
 Proper training should be provided by Bupa to their work forces in terms of dealing with
needs and requirements of care users (Best, Manktelow and Taylor, 2014).
 Deaf blindness is the integration of deterioration that is causing both hearing as well as
vision issues. In this case, patient could not be talked with ordinary communicating
styles. Therefore, professionals existing in mentioned corporation ought to be act by
having more patience. This aids them in creating strong bond of trust with the users for
improving mode of communication.
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Therefore, it can be stated that Bupa is needed to handle and monitor suitably each and every
issue associated with interpersonal connection which is carrying out between users and
employees.
(Source : Interpersonal communication barriers, 2017)
TASK 2
2.1 Influence of values and cultural factors on the activity of communication
An effectual transmission is treated as central for maintaining positive environment in
organisation. This should be done by considering the demands of members of social as well as
language minorities. Culture normally involves aggregation of knowledges, information, beliefs,
habits, customs and attitudes which is affiliated to recognise a group of citizens at a specific time
(Cameron and et. al., 2014). Thus, act of communication is being greatly impacted by the values
and cultural components ; since both patients and workers are of different tradition and this is the
reason they comprise of variants values and thoughts. Hence they need to be properly treated
and for doing the same, Bupa ought to emphasis on below mentioned factors liked with
conveyance which provides main influences :
 Beliefs : This is the responsibility of the care workers in company to regard the feeling of
their users. So, they require to provide freedom of practising their values and religion to
their each and every clients.
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Illustration 1: Interpersonal communication barriers

 Age : Employees should act and treat with their customers by considering the age of the
patients in mind since skills of communication needs to be different when used in front of
a child and an adult. Thus, age is giving major impact.
 Sex : Specialised caring have to be provided to the female users because they are more
sensitive in nature. Thus, it is the obligation of treatment providers to arrange feminine
staffs for girls and males attendants to boys for retaining their comfortableness.
 Education : Individual who are enlightened should need to be more flexible with hose
who are less or not educated (Fisher and Clayton, 2012).
 Social class : Transmission would comprise of different impacts on one's social class.
Hence services which will be being offered by health professional should be focussed on
level of social class associated with the patients for satisfying them.
2.3 Effectiveness of organisational policies and system to promote good practise
Health and social care ventures should be ensured that for promoting better practises ,
effective system and policies should be implemented appropriately. Bupa ought to has correct
system for assuring that every principles as well as code of practice are being conducted in
proper way. The cited firm should follow certain strategy or policy in order to encourage best
practising at their work station which is listed below :
 It is essential to respect and follow each and every laws imposed by government in
respect to health and social caring and use of modern ICT software.
 Work forces should engage themselves in spot checking, supervision, training and
development sessions (Glasby and Dickinson, 2014).
 Appraisal ought be given for workers on annual basis in order to inspire them in offering
best possible caring to potential service users.
 Company should build some norms regarding communication like no one will talk in
aggressive or abusive manner with patients especially from kids, females, old people,
etc.
 Bupa have to arrange some specific facilities to needy clients like wheel chairs,
translators, interpretors, etc.
Therefore, it can be stated that corporation – al principles and system is playing an
eminent role in increasing good practises in organisation which is proved to be profitable for
overall group including workers, professionals and venture itself.
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2.4 Ways of upgrading communication procedure
Communication process needs to be effectual in nature so that all issues of every
individual could be addressed properly. For doing the similar, Bupa needs to follow strategies in
order to improve the ways of communicating which is stated below :
 Makaton : This is nothing but the mode of conveyance by taking use of symbols and
signs. Here – in utilisation of facial expression and picture cards is being done for making
the conversation more simple among people. This scheme would aid patients in Bupa for
getting familiar from the usage of English and after that they could interact as well as
speak easily with the civilians surrounding to them (Griffiths and et. al., 2012).
 Technological aids : It would deal with the utilization of electronic assistance. For
instance, users present in given care home may use their mobile phones for talking with
their children or from family members who are surviving in other countries when they
would miss them. This will provide them a feeling of gratification and contentment.
 Human aids : It is including the usage of translators as well as interpreters. Patients who
are taking services in Bupa could use these type of human aids for expressing their
requirements or requests. By this way, they would be able to interact with the person
close to them in their language (Kitson and et. al., 2013). Therefore, it may be easy for
consumers to make another one like staffs or doctors to understand what they desire to
convey.
TASK 3
3.1 Use of standard ICT packages to support work in heath and social care
With the arrival of contemporary technologies, the usage of specialised software in the
sector of healthcare services have completely changed the means of maintaining information of
customers with the assistance of computerised systems. This has brought better provision of
keeping sensitive data like medication history of particular client, information associated with
various tests or their reports and many more.
Bupa can take use of modular information and technology packages such as mobile
phones, sensors, etc. These software is considered as prevailing for observing the conditions of
health of the old ageing European people and is named as Health Care through intelligent
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Monitoring (HCIM). Work forces of Bupa could also utilise the ICT software packages for doing
management of below described information :
 Surgical records
 Availability of data
 Preventions
 medical check up history of the users
 Transferring of data
 Offering forthcoming recommendations and suggestions
Although filling of records associated with information of client like bills, treatment, timing of
arrival as well as departure, etc. can be accomplished by taking help of modern ICT packages in
effective manner. In addition to this, if a user is to transfer into other facilities or another
medication-al venture, then the overall important data of clients should be transferred in
effectual manner by considering or maintaining the security (Korda and Itani, 2013). Thus, it can
be said that documentation linked with service users' data have to be kept secured so that Bupa
could obey all the legislatives consequences.
3.2 Advantages of using Information and communication technology
This has been observed that there are several benefits of applying ICT in sector of health
and social care. Care workers, clients who are taking services as well as caring corporations all
are being benefited from this which is going to be discussed below :
 To service takers : Information and communication technologies is allowing best mode
of communicating and recognizance of aspects linked with health of care users. In
addition to this, consumers are getting more attention from the workers since effective
observation is being conducted via computerised or processed systems mostly in cases of
emergency.
 To care workers : Since it is their job to manage overall information associated with
patient of several years involving the check - up history at single place. For this , now
they can easily receive any significant data only by clicking on some buttons in their
computers.
 To care organisation : It is being empowered for the effectualness of caring transferral
systems by taking assistance of digital techniques. Moreover, there is an important
commitment needed on the part of the ventures interlinked with healthcare which is
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management of cost or budgets since execution of modern technologies would incur large
number of revenue (Millar and Hal, 2013). This money will be spend in providing
training to staff members for handling such machineries and software as well. Apart from
this, it has been noticed that sometimes, information got leaked away from Bupa because
of some unprincipled activities of the hackers on the web. This may lead to violation of
policies associated with confidentiality in field of HSC.
3.3 How legal consideration in the use of ICT impact on HSC
There are several laws that needs to bear by all care organisations prior to use ICT
software in their commercial activities. Some of them which ought to be followed by Bupa are
mentioned below :
 Data protection act 2001 and 2008 : These both norms are obligated for handling as
well as controlling the personalised information of users, government and the businesses.
Such acts are holding that each individual is responsible for taking use of data but by
obeying standards mentioned in this legislation strictly. These information could be
related with political opinions, health, criminal records, ethic background ,etc.
 Health and safety at work act 1974 : This rule stating that firm is having the
responsibility for taking care of its workers in the workplace (World Health
Organization, 2012). Additionally, any kind of risk related with hazards needs to be
eliminated appropriately so that security can be maintained properly at work station.
 Display screen equipment regulation 1992 : This act aids in offering upliftment to the
personnels who used to work on screen based systems such as computer. Thus, it is the
duty of manager to look after issues connected to this.
CONCLUSION
From the above based report, it can be summarised that health and social care
organisation like Bupa is facing certain issues linked with communication. These problems
should be removed as it is decreasing the efficiencies of company and such difficulties would be
eliminated by using specific strategies which is described in this assignment. Apart from this,
various legislations associated with the usage of ICT impact on HSC is also discussed clearly
such as Data protection act 2001 and 2008, Health and safety at work act 1974, etc. These norms
should be obeyed by Bupa for running their firm in ethical manner.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
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.
Best, P., Manktelow, R. and Taylor, B., 2014. Online communication, social media and
adolescent wellbeing: A systematic narrative review. Children and Youth Services
Review. 41. pp.27-36.
Cameron, A. and et. al., 2014. Factors that promote and hinder joint and integrated working
between health and social care services: a review of research literature. Health & social
care in the community. 22(3). pp.225-233.
Fisher, J. and Clayton, M., 2012. Who gives a tweet: assessing patients’ interest in the use of
social media for health care. Worldviews on Evidence‐Based Nursing. 9(2). pp.100-108.
Glasby, J. and Dickinson, H., 2014. Partnership working in health and social care: what is
integrated care and how can we deliver it?. Policy Press.
Griffiths, F. and et. al., 2012. Social networks–the future for health care delivery. Social science
& medicine. 75(12). pp.2233-2241.
Kitson, A. and et. al., 2013. What are the core elements of patient‐centred care? A narrative
review and synthesis of the literature from health policy, medicine and nursing. Journal
of advanced nursing. 69(1). pp.4-15.
Korda, H. and Itani, Z., 2013. Harnessing social media for health promotion and behavior
change. Health promotion practice. 14(1). pp.15-23.
Millar, R. and Hall, K., 2013. Social return on investment (SROI) and performance
measurement: The opportunities and barriers for social enterprises in health and social
care. Public Management Review. 15(6). pp.923-941.
World Health Organization, 2012. Dementia: a public health priority. World Health
Organization.
Online
Interpersonal communication barriers. 2017. [online].Available through :
<https://www.slideshare.net/NardiinObada/chapter-14-2011>.
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