Arden University HCR5003: Inter-Agency Working Case Study Report

This report examines inter-agency working within the healthcare sector, using a case study of a couple facing various challenges. It explores the complex challenges and opportunities of inter-agency collaboration, particularly emphasizing the importance of meeting service users' cultural needs within the community, referencing the healthcare agency Care Hearted Limited. The report delves into the negative impacts of these challenges on the agency and outlines leadership issues affecting service delivery. It further appraises the values of multi-disciplinary teamwork in healthcare and explains how such teams can achieve effective service delivery. The report analyzes professional, psychological, structural, and contextual barriers to effective inter-agency collaboration and concludes with recommendations for improved practices and patient outcomes.

Inter Agency Working

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Question 1........................................................................................................................................3
Complex challenges and opportunities of Inter-Agency working - with emphasis on the need
to meet service user’s cultural needs in the community.........................................................3
Describe how your identified challenges faced by the couple could have negative impact on
the particular healthcare agency.............................................................................................5
Question 2........................................................................................................................................6
Outline some of the leadership issues faced by the couple in terms of how healthcare agencies
could have efficiently managed their needs...........................................................................6
What could you have done differently from a professional point of view to address the
couple’s cultural need/s?........................................................................................................9
Question 3......................................................................................................................................10
Appraise some of the values of multi-disciplinary teamwork in healthcare........................10
Explain with examples how multi-disciplinary teams can achieve effective delivery,
particularly when supporting the couple..............................................................................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................14

INTRODUCTION
Interagency working and the sharing of the information among different services has been
increasing on national as well as international level so that the services can be improved for the
children and young people (Hopkins, 2020). With the effective implementation of the
interagency working the services can be improved at different level such as new structures can
be adopted, outcomes can be changed as the processes of offering services will be changed. This
report is based upon the case study of two war victims that faced the some issues and which had
adverse impact on them. The reports include various challenges and opportunities of working
with interagency and its impact on the people includes in the case study. In addition to this it
includes the impact of the leadership on the performance of the entire team and how it can affect
the interest on an individual. Also some values are included which are part of multi-disciplinary
teamwork in the healthcare profession and how such team can achieve effective delivery of the
services.
Question 1
Complex challenges and opportunities of Inter-Agency working - with emphasis on the need to
meet service user’s cultural needs in the community
Effective inter agency working facilitate the people working in Healthcare to offer better
Frontline services and thus improve the outcomes for those people who are suffering with some
issue. In the given case, the couple was not supported efficiently by the healthcare agency even
when they were informed by the caseworker regarding the needs of the couple. This has severely
affected the well-being of the couple and due to this it becomes important to determine various
challenges that are faced by inter-agency working while offering services to the sufferers. The
health care agency that has taken into consideration is Care Hearted Limited. There are various
obstacles are challenges which are faced by the workers in Care Hearted Limited include:
Professional Obstacles to inter-agency working: These are the obstacles which places
unrealistic parameters on various roles of healthcare professionals due to which the clarity in the
roles and responsibilities of different individuals and agencies are not defined. It leads to
misinterpretation of the role of inter agency settings and thus it lead to unrealistic expectations
which cannot be achieved. For example, the couple inform to the caseworker regarding their

requirement and expectations in context of cultural needs, but there undefined roles and
responsibility leads to non fulfilment of their expectations (Joseph, 2019).
Psychological obstacles to interagency work: It is related with professional rivalry,
stereotyping, load of previous experiences etc. All this leads to inhibiting of the inter-agency
working as well as affects the performance of the professional offering their services. The power
and status of the professional body enables them to render better services as they have a strong
sense of loyalty due to their previous experiences. But it also affects the level of understanding
of the professionals due to which they ignore the situation that arise before them. For example, in
the given case the caseworker did not paid much emphasis on the problem faced by the couple as
well as their expectations that can help them to get over the issue.
Structural or organisational obstacle to inter-agency working: These obstacles include
the fragmentation of the services and high rate of employee turnover due to poorly allocated
resources and inefficient communication network among different levels within the organisation.
Due to this the ground realities and the expectations of the people cannot be passed onto the
leaders so that their expectations can be met. In case of Care Hearted Limited the structure is not
clear among the people due to which it becomes difficult to identify to inform to whom and thus
it leads to the inefficiency in the services.
Contextual or political barriers: In addition to these barriers there are various political
barriers which affect the operations of the agencies as such agencies have to comply with the
requirement of the government and the political parties. Due to this the interest of the people get
directly influenced such as the cultural needs of the couple could not be satisfied due to
inefficiency of the leaders which are more focussed to comply and manage the political impact
on the agency in terms of funds and favour (Markey, Tilki and Taylor, 2018).
Training opportunities and culture of the agency: The inefficient training to the
caseworker and other staff members has impact on their performance which becomes barrier for
the organisation as due to this they cannot contribute much efficiently to the agency. Also the
agency culture becomes the barriers where differences in ideologies, values, etc. directly affect
the level of communication and sharing of the information which lead to the problem to the
couple as their expectations were not addressed by the organisation.
Planning and consultation, lack of efficiency in the communication, lack of efficiency in
the exchanging of the information leads to various issues such as in the case of the Mr and Mrs

Musa, as they expected faith and cultural support but the leaders at the Care Hearted Limited did
not emphasised on such needs and due to this the couple felt frustrated and accepted isolation
from each and every person even the social worker, support network from the community etc.
The inter-agency workings have the opportunities to encourage the cultural needs in the
community so that the people suffering from various issues can develop understanding with
others and can easily get out of it. The interagency working facilitate better understanding and
interaction other Agencies and the staff so that the recovery of the family can be ensured. The
caseworker is of Care Hearted Limited had an opportunity to develop better communities and
cultural group for the couple that can provide them unique strength for overcoming the impact of
War and changing their perspective as per the larger community as well as the cultural group.
The inter-agency working has opportunity to expand their area of working with the help of
which they can ensure proper medicine and proper guidance of the general practitioner in context
of the mental health. This ensure better recovery of the patient and this will also motivate them
as they will be able to analyse their improvement which will positive impact in their performance
(Schofield, 2020). Apart from this with better and satisfying services to the patients the agencies
such as Care Hearted Limited can ensure better profitability from the organisational context and
satisfying or enjoyable gain for the individuals or staff as the profession includes various
emotional aspects as the staff members serves the people for long hours.
Describe how your identified challenges faced by the couple could have negative impact on the
particular healthcare agency
Various challenges were faced by the couple such as lack of interest of the healthcare
agency in fulfilling the cultural needs due to which they have to isolate themselves from the
community and support services. The barriers such as professional barriers, psychological
barriers, structural barriers, contextual barriers, etc. have affected the performance of the
caseworker and the interest of the couple along with the entire community. This has significant
negative impact on the Care Hearted Limited Healthcare agency such as:
Financial losses: Due to ineffective performance and unacceptable behaviour with the
couple the agency will face loss of their customer that take services from them for caseworker,
domiciliary worker, etc. With the reduction in financial gains the company has to face various
challenges such as meeting of the expenditures of salaries to staff, administration expenses, etc.

Non financial losses: This will also affect the satisfaction level of the employees as they
could not provide better services to the person who are they responsible for due to ineffective
communication channel within the organisation. It will increase the turnover rates in care hearted
Limited with which the operations of the healthcare agency will get affected (Mendes, 2017).
Adverse impact on the image: Due to irresponsible behaviour of the organisation their
image will get deteriorated and this can lead to strict action by the government and regulatory
authorities with the aim to put an example over other organisation to consider welfare of the
people as their priority.
Impact on the structure: The management of care hearted Limited for managing such
issue need to reshuffle the structure of the organisation so that the inefficiency of the leader at
strategic level and lack of support at managerial level so that better governance can be made
possible. But it can lead to dissatisfaction among senior level employees due to which their level
of performance moves in download direction.
Legal proceeding by the community: The care hearted Limited may have to face legal
proceedings from the community as due to lack of care and support from healthcare agency the
avoidable situation of the couple has lead to severe issue for them they have isolated themselves
from all the support services and the cultural groups. It can be treated as carelessness of the
organisation due to which they may have to pay fine or even may be directed to shutdown the
organisation (Adams, Dominelli and Payne, 2017).
Question 2
Outline some of the leadership issues faced by the couple in terms of how healthcare agencies
could have efficiently managed their needs
The health care agencies have to take in consideration various actions and strategies for
managing the health care of the person suffering from some issues. The quality of the healthcare
services is dependent upon the leadership style that has been used by the managers with the
agencies but due to lack of such skills and leadership style has direct impact on the people that
include both the staff members as well as patients. The Healthcare Agencies are consists of
various professional, specialist and departments that offer to the people (Octarra, 2018). This
generates the need of effective leadership so that ethics can be incorporated in the

multidisciplinary practices of the Healthcare professionals. Effective leaders adopt various styles
of leadership such as:
 Transformational leadership: This emphasizes on effectiveness in communication of
the vision and collective purpose by the leaders to the staff so that they can be
empowered to consider various ethical practices and follows principles such as to provide
continuous and consistent services to the individual and identifying their issues for
resolving them on time.
 Collaborative leadership: This leadership is crucial in Healthcare agencies such as Care
Hearted Limited as with the help of this the leaders can encourage togetherness for
ensuring the healthcare management. For this various responsibilities are allocated to
different people show that level of complexity in the structure can be reduced and
communication is made better. The cooperation among each other contributes to
sustainable health and safety of the community as well as brings efficiency in managing
the illness of the patient (Dickinson and Carey, 2016).
 Ethical leadership: The ethical leadership has substantial impact on the working style of
the Healthcare staff as well as the outcomes of the patients because they efficiently
influence them for adopting risk strategy, underline various believes in values, influences
decisions etc.
The leadership in the Healthcare agencies women facing various challenges which are related
with divergent changing needs as well as expectations of the patients along with increasing cost
of treatment. This has direct impact on the result oriented leadership style as the roles and skills
necessary for delivering desired set of results by the staff gets affected because they do not get
proper guidance and expectations are not entertained by the leaders.
Impact on the ethics of the care:
The leaders in the health care industry ensures that the safe, high quality and
compassionate services and care is provided to the patients but the inefficiency in the leadership
has negative impact on both the quality of the performance of the individuals as well as on the
satisfaction level of the patients. Due to this the ethics of care gets affected and the principles
that govern the health care system are not achieved by the organisation. Lack of leadership ahs
direct on the cooperation and coordination among different agencies and their employees which
ultimately affect the care delivery system. In addition to this the inefficiency in the structure and

the responsibility among the leaders the staffs becomes irresponsible such as in the case of Mr
and Mrs Musa as they could provide them their requirements which were nothing but the faith
and the cultural needs.
Leadership issues faced by the couple: When one or more agency work together for providing
better services to other the requirement of coordination and cooperation increases due to which
the role of the leaders increases (Swihart and Hughes, 2018). In the case of the Mr and Mrs Musa
the caseworker when identified their needs communicated to the leaders of the health care
agency i.e., Care Hearted Limited but due to various issues in the leadership discussed below
they could not provided them the required services:
 Inefficient communication among different agencies: The leaders of the agencies who
work in collaboration with Care Hearted Limited were not active such as the NGO’s and
the social workers in them were not considering the request of the caseworker while the
leaders of the health care agency were not personally responsible due to the challenge of
shifting mindset of the leaders towards the system change so that the profitability of the
company can be enhanced. Due to this communication gap the request of cultural needs
were not taken into consideration and fulfilled. In addition to this the cultural shift
among the leaders working within the agencies has become the barriers for the issues
which were faced by the couple.
 Ineffective collaboration and cooperation: Due to lack of collaboration and
cooperation among the leaders for the wellbeing of the patients have become the
leadership issues that were faced by the couple. The structure of the agencies are
complex and the unclear roles and responsibilities of the people leads to shifting of the
issue onto one another due to which the healthcare agencies could not managed their
needs. This arises because of the lack of realisation that they all are performing for the
benefits of the people rather than for enhancing the value of the company or the
organisation (Pieters, Kedde and Bender, 2018).
Such issues could have easily be managed by the leaders as if they would have
communicated the respective organisation that could have provided them the cultural group with
similar behaviour and mindset the recovery of the could would have been ensured. Upon
receiving the identified needs of the couple from the caseworkers the leaders must notify the

respective community irrespective of their preferences related to the growth of the agencies and
other issues that they were facing with other organisation part of the agencies.
What could you have done differently from a professional point of view to address the couple’s
cultural need/s?
Being the health care professional it becomes the responsibility of the staff members to
address the needs of the people they are taking care of. But they are also restricted by the roles
and responsibilities along with the authorities provided to them as per the structure of the inter
agency working. To manage the cultural competence is important for getting the excellence in
delivery the health care services and for eliminating the disparities in the practices on the basis of
ethnicity and racial factors. For the health care professional to develop the cultural competence is
crucial as with the help of this they can ensure that the services are provided to the patient even
by them by with the help of the agency (Owens, 2017). If I would have been the caseworker I
would have taken various steps at my level for providing the faith and the cultural needs of the
couple with the help of following consideration:
 I would increase the level of interaction with the couple and would have identified the
impact of cultural barriers on them and accordingly I would have communicated with
extra efforts to the management of the Care Hearted Limited. With this the matter could
be taken to the other leader who could have taken it into consideration as well as the
recommended different ways for managing the situation.
 As being a professional caseworker I have significant knowledge about the organisation
that working for the wellbeing of the people and can satisfy the cultural needs of the
people. By connecting them directly the needs of the couple could have been managed as
such organisation will allot the social workers to them who can take them to the cultural
events and in the programs where they can interact with the community people so that
they can get over the trauma of the war (Marr, Seasman and Bishop, 2017).
 In addition to this the cross cultural interaction of the couple with others in the network
can be initiated as with the help of this their cultural needs could have been satisfied. This
is because being a health care professional I have the capability to understand the values,
belief’s and need of the patient. Such an understanding would have facilitated me in
managing the relation with the person within the community and the couple on the basis
of similarities possessed by them.

 The ineffectiveness of the working of the interagency organisations, health care system
and the service providers in context of the cultural competence put the patient on the
higher risk and enhances the negative consequences on the health such as it occurred in
the case of the couple because they isolated themselves. To support this I will try to
include the community and the other family as with the help of this the moral support and
culture specific support will heal them more efficiently.
Question 3
Appraise some of the values of multi-disciplinary teamwork in healthcare
The interagency working and collaboration is dependent upon the better performance of all
the related organisation and if the partner agencies do not perform well then the user of the
services suffers as they do not fit into the categories so identified by the government and the
health care system operating in the country. To support the inter agency working and
multidisciplinary teamwork various values are defined for the working in the teams so that health
outcomes and satisfaction of the client can be improved (Housley, 2017). Some of the values are:
 Honesty: All the team member must effectively communicate with others so that
transparency in the aims of objectives can be insured along with continuous improvement
and maintenance of the mutual trust among all.
 Discipline: The roles and responsibilities so allocated to the healthcare professional must
be executed with discipline which implies that all the information must be shared among
each other so that the situation can be managed by complying with all the standards and
protocols of the service delivery. It can be done with the help of effective communication
where each and every member of team prioritise and continuously improve their
communication skills so that all the member can consistently complete the
communication across all the settings of Healthcare system.
 Curiosity: For the Healthcare professional it is important to be curious to know more
about the service users so that their problems can be identified by them as well as their
expectations and accordingly they improve their functioning with the help of which they
can resolve their issues (Clifford, 2019).
 Creativity: This value of the team member defines that the professionals need to identify
various possibilities with the help of which they can tackle the problems in a creative

manner and anticipate the bad outcomes of the situations that can arise. This enables
them to achieve their shared goals which are based upon the priorities of the patient and
their family.
Various models are used by the system for managing the performance and better procedure
of the health care delivery. The model which is taken into consideration for managing the
multidisciplinary team work is given below:
Key worker model with triage at point of referral: According to this model key workers
are for all the services that are provided to the user. For executing the role effectively co-ordinate
and co-operate for the care plan which the primary aim offering delivering better care to the
service user. They serve as the point of access for the service users and carers. The key role that
are played in the model is defined by the management structure which is generally comprised of
clinical leader, team coordinator and business manager who will be held responsible for various
task as per their nature of professionalism (Strunk, Leisen and Schubert, 2017). This model
works in three step in which a contact is created with the coordinator who assign the case to the
team member. On the basis of the issue that case is presented before the full team and according
a key worker is are located who can satisfy identified. After analysing the situation care plan is
developed with the help of which care is provided to the service user.

Explain with examples how multi-disciplinary teams can achieve effective delivery, particularly
when supporting the couple
For ensuring the optimum functioning of the multidisciplinary team and better outcomes
for the patients the roles and responsibility of the entire multidisciplinary team members are
clearly defined with the help of which the planning for the care and delivery of services can be
ensured. For ensuring this various factors need to be considered which are given below:
 Respect and trust between team members along with agreed systems and protocols
for communication and interaction between team members: With the help of trust and
respected the communication can be ensured such as in case of Mr and Mrs Musa it
would have facilitated with the identified cultural needs to them due to which their
recovery could be ensured. It helps in improving the delivery of the services as it
develops the mutual trust among the team members that can facilitate with better delivery
of the services. The system and protocol for communication would have helped the
Couple as with this their identified need must be considered (Gould, 2016).
 Agreed clinical governance structures and best use of the skill mix within the team:
Better and agreed clinical structure of the organisation with mix of the various skills can
facilitate in ensuring delivery of the services efficiently such as in case of the couple if
better governance was present in Care Hearted Limited then the lack leadership must not
have affected their concern. With this significant responsibility can be provided to the
team members so that they can be made responsible and authorities are provided that
enable them to take actions for the betterment of the service users through skill mix in the
team.
The issues related to inter agency and multidisciplinary working are crucial and complex to
manage because they have direct implication on the work practices and organisational
arrangement due to which the service user get affected as well as the satisfaction level of the
professionals is also influenced.
CONCLUSION
It is concluded from the above report that the organisation must take into consideration
various factors which can facilitate them in improving the delivery of the services to the service
users. The interagency workings faces various barriers such as leadership barriers due to the
impact of structure of the organisation, contextual barriers etc. which influences the interest of