The Role of Joint Agreements in Improving Healthcare Outcomes

The document discusses the importance of partnership work in health and social care sectors. It underscores the benefits of multi-disciplinary teams and strategic collaborations for handling varied healthcare challenges more effectively. The paper emphasizes maintaining good relationships with all stakeholders, including patients, to optimize decision-making processes. Furthermore, it explores methodologies like Multi Area Agreement and Local Area Agreement that foster informed decisions aimed at improving patient satisfaction. In conclusion, the report advocates for integrated approaches in health services to better manage diverse patient needs and promote organizational growth.

WORKING IN
PARTNERSHIP

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
1.1 Philosophy of working in partnership in health and social care.......................................1
1.2 Partnership relationships within health and social care services......................................2
2.1 Models of partnership working across the health and social care sector.........................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Partnership means working in association with two or more people as a partner. This is
the most renowned way of doing any business. Due to the involvement of number of brains ,
many new things can be brought out .People work in collaboration to enhance their business by
providing best services (Burwell, 2015). In this report highlights on working in partnership is
thrown. Children and young people’s mental health services (CAMHS) in United Kingdom is
taken as an example to explain the advantages of working in partnership.
1.1 Philosophy of working in partnership in health and social care
Partnership deed in this sector is based upon mutual relationship between the partners to
provide quality services to the patients . It is essential in this era for the growth of any industry. It
is the interaction between the management and the working staff which helps the patients and
also the people who are responsible to take care of them. With the help of using this philosophy
the people can do their duties with more determination and hence, reach their goals. It is more
effective way to increase the performance (Cameron and et.al., 2014) . There are four important
philosophies of working in a partnership in health and social care. They are as follows:
1. Authorization:In this sector, people are authorized to do what they want to do depending
upon the best suitable option for them. Staff, caretakers and even the patients all are
permitted to express their own needs .This helps the caretaker to analyse the patient in a
better way to treat them. Children and young people’s mental health services (CAMHS)
in United Kingdom has also empowered the individuals.
2. Respect: To be an effective healthcare organisation, one should have respect for the
patients and also for the staff which is working over there. Their individual identity
should be kept intact and also the partners has to consider their requirement also while
taking any decision (West and et.al., 2014).
3. Freedom: It is another most important factor that one has to consider. Every individual
should have a freedom to choose the way of their working to perform in the most
effective way.
1

4. Informed choices: The most important factor while running such association is that one
should inform the patient or their relatives about the way of their treatment . This keeps
them satisfied which helps to recover the patient at faster rate and also they can
communicate to the caretaker about the treatment which is suiting them the most.
There are several other factors also to be kept in mind. One should provide more flexible
services,reduce duplication and utilise the available resources in a better way,should distribute
the services in equal proportion according to the availability of staff ,providing better services to
the patients are some of the ways to accelerate in this sector.
Proper planning has to be done, workforce should be developed in a organised way so
that they can provide the best services, proper inspection and monitoring is required to check if
everything is going in a smooth way or not. So these are some of the ways by which the health
and social care sector working in a partnership can run in a proper way. Sometimes for this the
missions such as structuring and restructuring the health care network also has to put on to
manage all the activities to keep the patients satisfied. To implement new technological
advancement will also help to gain advantage.
These philosophies has to be implemented to run any health care sector in an effective way.
1.2 Partnership relationships within health and social care services
This is the mutual relations among the working partners to promote their sector. Relations affects
any organisation in the most powerful way (Smith and et.al., 2015). Healthy relations should be
there among care taking staff, doctors , patients etc. to provides effective services to the one who
is in the need. There are various kinds of relationships that may occur while working in the
partnership in health and social care centres. They are as follows :
1.) General relationships:They can be defined as a relationships between the members
working within a team. This is of general kind and the members will communicate as
and when the help is required.
2.) Limited relationship: This is a kind of interaction between the staff and the financial
team . They communicate only when something new has to be installed for the
financial help to meet the expenditure.
3.) Relationship at will: It is the relationship between the vendors and the staff when
some new medicines come into the picture or for any technological advancement.
2

Patients are generally dependent on care taking staff and hence, they have to talk with the
patients in a very cool way (Batalden and et.al., 2015). This also helps in increasing the patient
confidence to heal up. Similarly, relationship between the medical staff and the patient is also
important . This is a kind of relationship at will. Medical staff has to communicate with the
patient whenever they want. This is very important to keep the patient satiated about the
treatment given. Medical staff has to suit some other way to heal the patient if the treatment
given is not suiting the patient. Staff has to do the same in a calm manner.
In this way relationship among all the individual working in a health and social care
sector is of utmost importance. It also promote them because if they have healthy relationships
with the user , patients also recommend other to have a check-up at same centre only. Children
and young people’s mental health services (CAMHS) in United Kingdom has maintained good
relationship with the service users and hence is known by everyone.
2.1 Models of partnership working across the health and social care sector
These are the ways by which partnership organisation find a way to manage themselves
in an organised way. Various partnership working models are developed by health and social
care and these are so impressive that today many legal institutions are also following the same.
Some of these models are voluntarily led or some are professionally supported (Russ , 2015). To
explain the effective working of this sector an example of Assertive Outreach Model is described
below which is also used by Children and young people’s mental health services (CAMHS) in
United Kingdom. Some of the important characteristics of this model are listed below:
 Multi-disciplinary: With the help of setting a collaboration with any team of professionals
like doctors, trainers, nurses,social workers, psychiatrists,therapists etc. one can take their
help according to the varying condition of the patients. This way it helps a lot to handle
varied kind of patients.
 Contacting the clients: This approach helps to widen the networking of the organisation
by interacting with more number of clients. This is for the ease of clients and hence hey
need not have to wait in queue to meet a doctor or while having surgery or implants.
 Utilization of resources: Some clients come from far away to cure themselves and when
they get back to their place , they may not have resources over there. Working in
partnership helps to facilitate the network issue and to provide the patient with the
required medical assistance wherever they need.
3

This way all these methodology helps the partnership working in health and social care sector to
achieve the destination (Glasby and et.al., 2014) .
Multi area agreement, local area agreement and joint working agreement all these are also useful
to make informed decision so as to enhance the satisfaction of the patients.
Multi area agreement is used in case of regional and sub-regional levels. These are voluntary
agreement set by local government. They helps in making informed decision by assembling
various data and information
Similarly,Local area agreement sets a particular target for any local government to achieve and
thus they devote their hundred percent to work for the welfare of the patients.
In the same way, Joint working agreement is also helpful in which the goals are agreed upon
jointly by the partners and this collaborative works opens a door for new innovation to be done.
CONCLUSION
From the above report we can say that working in a partnership is very advantageous
specially in the case of health and social care sector. The reason behind this is that being
associated with number of partners varied varieties of patients can be handled in a better way.
Also , this helps to interact with large number of clients which leads to promote the organisation
in a smart way. Relationship maintenance is an important aspect of these sectors. One has to
consider the needs of every individual while making any decision .Multi-disciplinary also plays a
vital role in assisting these organisations.
4

REFERENCES
Glasby, J., and et.al., 2014. Partnership working in health and social care: what is integrated
care and how can we deliver it?. Policy Press.
Russ, L., 2015. WA10 Working in partnership with people with learning disabilities: academics
and people with learning disabilities working together to disseminate the findings of a
confidential inquiry into deaths of people with learning disabilities through film.
Batalden, M., and et.al., 2015. Coproduction of healthcare service. BMJ Qual Saf, pp.bmjqs-
2015.
Smith, J., and et.al., 2015. Involving parents in managing their child's long-term condition—A
concept synthesis of family-centered care and partnership-in-care. Journal of Pediatric
Nursing: Nursing Care of Children and Families. 30(1). pp.143-159.
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.
West, M.A., and et.al., 2014. Developing collective leadership for health care. King's Fund.
Burwell, S.M., 2015. Setting value-based payment goals—HHS efforts to improve US health
care. N Engl J Med .372(10). pp.897-899.
5