Leadership in Professional Practice: Improving Decision Making Process

This report examines leadership in professional practice within the context of Bedford Hospital, focusing on the challenges of ineffective decision-making processes. The author, a unit manager in the surgical ward, identifies issues arising from inter-professional disagreements and a lack of coordination. The project's focus is to evaluate and improve the decision-making process by fostering mutual understanding among professionals and implementing effective solutions. The report outlines the need for change, justifying it with the aim of enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare services, improving patient satisfaction, and streamlining hospital operations. It discusses the role of stakeholders, both internal and external, and the importance of their engagement. The report also explores the context within which the project will be implemented, highlighting the need for better communication and cooperation between different departments. It then explains strategies for mobilizing cooperation, engagement, and facilitation to implement changes, emphasizing the importance of mutual understanding between staff and management to ensure the successful adoption of new strategies and decisions.

Leadership in Professional
Practice Environments

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Workplace and Role ..............................................................................................................3
Project Focus..........................................................................................................................3
Change / Improve...................................................................................................................4
Purpose of the Change............................................................................................................4
Justification for Change..........................................................................................................5
The Stakeholders....................................................................................................................5
Context within which project will be implemented...............................................................6
Mobilising cooperation, engagement and facilitation............................................................7
Process used for scoping the project......................................................................................8
Evaluation...............................................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Leadership can be considered as an activity which focuses on leading a group of people
towards established targets. The concept of leadership involves providing direction and
guidance, motivating and inspiring people to work better (Regan, Laschinger and Wong, 2016).
On the other hand, professional practice is referred to ideal use of one's knowledge into provision
of person focused care to patients. This assignment will focus on problem of decision making
process in Bedford Hospital. This hospital is situated in England town of Bedford and is run by
Bedford Hospital NHS Trust. It was founded in 1897 and provide services in different
department of health care. The problem will be discussed and evaluated so that major positive
outcomes in terms of healthcare are availed.
MAIN BODY
Workplace and Role
Currently, I am working as unit manager in surgical ward of Bedford Hospital, handling
adult patients and my role in the hospital is to lead a team of doctors from different professions
that are concerned with people care and health. My main responsibilities are to formulate critical
decisions that can improve the with assistance of other doctors, regular check on patients,
implementation of care policies and regulations, giving necessary advices to staff and doctors
and developing good relations with patients and their families.
Project Focus
I have been working in this hospital for last 5 years and is well aware of all the situations
in the hospital. At the time of collaboration of inter professionals from different specialization, it
become difficult to formulate common decisions as each have their own opinion and advice
which cannot be applied at the same time as it may deplete status of health of a patient at the
hospital. The professionals from various domain try to put forward their own values and decision
which complicates the circumstances further instead of providing a suitable approach for
resolution. The problem with decision making process is increasing and no effective decision
has been developed due to lack of coordination and mutual understanding amongst professionals.

So, in this project, my main focus is to evaluate the reasons for ineffective decision making in
context of provision of ideal collaborative care and implementation of effective solutions to
improve decisions developing process with mutual consideration of inter professionals.
Change / Improve
As hospital deals in almost every sector of health care, so it is necessary to develop better
decision and strategies in order to maintain the effectiveness and normal functioning of hospital.
As a unit manager, it is my duty to improve and change the decision making process in nursing
section as well as for the whole hospital and for that, new methods can be adopted such as voting
and consulting in order to formulate better plans. Alone, I cannot change the process, it requires
assistance and participation of all doctors from different professions at the time of undertaking
decision. Senior doctors should be present at the time of decision making process as they are the
heads of different departments of hospitals and they are responsible for communicating any
decision related to their department to their employees.
Due to bad decisions, hospital have been facing problems such as incapable of providing
better services to patients, inefficient staff, etc., and employees are unable to provide better care
and services to their patients. There have been confused relating to their roles and responsibilities
and lack of coordination and communication within work environment hampers the quality of
services offered to people. To overcome this scenario, clinical procedures and policies have to be
modified and certain rules and regulations have to established in each department so that it leads
to provision of appropriate collaborative care to patients. So as a unit manager, I have to involve
doctors of different specialization and encourage mutual understanding between them so that
they can bring necessary change or improvement within hospital so that each employee can
provide best services to patients without any chaos.
Purpose of the Change.
The main purpose of this change is to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of services
offered to patients along with formulation of hospital as well as mutual agreement between
multidisciplinary doctors. With implementation of proper undertaken change within hospital
premise, employees will able to provide better health care services to patients and this will
increase their satisfaction level. Also, it will improve the functioning of hospital and every
employee will know their duties and responsibilities and service benchmarks which is to be
followed by them. The whole purpose is to enhance the coordination between doctors belonging

from different domains so that they can develop better strategies and decisions in context of
clients so that they are being provided with suitable care..
Justification for Change
As Bedford Hospital is a well reputed hospital in Bedford town and in order to maintain
its effectiveness, critical decisions and strategies are taken and implemented by seniors
andmanagement. With proper decisions and planning, employees and other staff members can
perform their work in proper manner and this will lead to better results and satisfied patients.
The main aim is to provide best services to patients as possible which requires proper decisions
to be taken by top management. There is collaboration of different departments of health care
and each departments have their own leaders who are responsible for developing better strategies
and implementing them within respective departments for better efficiency. But, in previous
months, hospital has faced with decline in the quality of service offered to patients primarily due
to conflicts and ineffective coordination amongst service professionals. The another prime cause
which have resulted in poor service delivery is the decisions which is being formulated by the
senior management.
In order to restore the value and efficiency of hospital, change and modification in
decision making process is essential can be altered with the help of engagement and participation
of different department heads. By encouraging mutual understanding between doctors, more
effective decisions can be developed which can improve the functioning and efficiency of
employees as well as hospital. Assistance of every doctor is necessary as they have full
knowledge about their department and they can provide best suggestions and opinions at the time
of decision making process. As a unit manager, it is my responsibility to implement best advices
and opinion suggested by doctors and also makes employees aware about the same. This will
improve satisfaction level in doctors and they will feel that their advices has been noticed. With
better satisfaction, doctors can give better ideas and with assistance of all can lead to better
modification and development of health related decisions and strategies.
The Stakeholders
Stakeholders are the persons who are associated with the organisation (Andriof, 2017). In
this scenario, stakeholders are the persons who are concerned with Bedford Hospital. There are
different types of stakeholders and the categorization is given below:

Interface stakeholders: These are the persons who works externally as well as
internally. It include trustees and senior staff which represents interests of hospital.
Internal stakeholders: These person works from inside the hospital enterprise. It include
staff and other workers working in hospital, such as chief executives, chief financial officer, etc
(Harrison and Wicks, 2013).
External stakeholders: They are not employees by the hospital but impact the
organisation from outside. Such as Federal government, general practitioners, health and social
care regulators, health maintenance organisation, etc.
Some of the major benefits of stakeholders are: proper engagement with stakeholders,
can prevent several problems within enterprise. Along with this, provide better ideas and
suggestions at the time of decision making process. Additionally, being the part of meeting, they
allow companies to be a part of solutions and help in reducing the risks of litigation. Lastly, they
help seniors of organisation to anticipate possible problems as they have level of experience and
belongs from variety of backgrounds.
On the other hand, some of the limitation of above explained stakeholder are; there are
times when stakeholders are only interested and focused towards their interests. Often external
stakeholders might act in certain way of their interest and might not comply with hospital's
regulations. Moreover, Blocking progress become frequent when external stakeholder fear that
business action can harm their interests (Hörisch, Freeman and Schaltegger, 2014). At last, it has
been assessed that smart business persons generally approach antagonistic stakeholder prior to
problem and after that, they build a relationship in order to make advantage. Apart from this, it
become difficult to manage stakeholder when they are geographically dispersed. Hence,
Stakeholder have low response rate and anonymity can lead to low level of accountability.
Context within which project will be implemented.
As hospital is built in order to provide health care services to patients and also provide
relevant information related to precautions from diseases and first aid. Bedford Hospital is facing
problem as there is no mutual understanding between different professionals at the time of
decision making process and delivering of services and due to this the management is unable to
produce proper health outcomes for hospital. This is leading to mismanagement and employees
are unable to provide their best services to patients.

There are several employees within hospital enterprise who are lacking desired skills and
knowledge to perform their responsibility properly in surgical ward section. Patients at this ward
requires special attentions and are very delicate ad sensitive. So in this scenario, senior doctor is
thinking of providing appropriate training to incapable employees so that they are capable of
rendering desired care as per the requirement of patient. .
On the other hand, other managers in the hospital is suggesting recruitment and selection
of efficient staff members and terminating old and incapable employees, as new candidates will
have the desired skills and knowledge in this area and will able to handle the children carefully.
The professional doctors does not find the need of recruiting new people and terminating old
employees as with necessary training their skills and knowledge can be improved. From the
above scenario, there have been difference in the thinking of both doctor and manager of other
wards. Due to difference in thinking, management is unable to take a proper decision. It has
become difficult to choose one alternative into consideration as they both leads to attainment of
improved outcomes for this healthcare institution.
So, the focus of this project is to improve decision making process by improving mutual
understanding between professionals and manager. As they are responsible for developing
strategies and decisions which will enhance the efficiency of hospital and employees.
Above issue can be resolved when both of them listens to each other's point and
understand one another and mutually decide what's best for organisation along with care users.
As both are correct so they can opt something different or they can terminate some of the
employees by keeping rest, this can be decided on previous performances of employees. Low
performer will be terminated and on behalf of them, management can hire capable candidates
with desired skill and knowledge of child care and handling. Both, manager and doctor can agree
on this decision as it include suggestions of both persons and will be beneficial for hospital.
Above is the context in which this project can be implemented as there is a need for
better decisions that can benefit organisation as well as patients that are coming to their hospital.
Mobilising cooperation, engagement and facilitation.
Any new change or modification cannot be implemented properly until there is full
cooperation and engagement with staff members and management. It requires proper
engagement and coordination to adopt changes and implement them in daily routine properly. As
hospital is facing issues related to bad decisions and problem with mutual understanding between

professionals, this will affect other people also such as employees, staff members, workers and
even patients. Patients requires care and attention of professional doctors and nursing staff and in
that situation bad decision can lead to harmful consequences that may include death of any
patient. So it requires everybody's cooperation in implementing good practices within hospital to
provide best possible services to patients.
Senior level management can organise a meeting for everyone including staff members,
workers, managers, leaders doctors, nursing staff, etc. and can brief them related to new change
or modification that is proper decision making and its implementation within organisation.
Manager can asks for cooperation of everybody and also tell the advantages of this
implementation. If the majority of people are in favour than this issue can be easily sorted out
and better decisions can be implemented within enterprise.
It is not just about cooperation of members, it requires full participation or engagement.
With this hospital can achieve better results in no time and will able to see good changes.
Employee will be able to perform better and will provide better services to patients. There will
be increased mutual understanding between doctors and proper formulation of decisions. Proper
development of hospital policies and procedures and making employee aware about modification
will lead to better performance. Basically, engagement of various individual or professional is
essential for making proper decision at health care sector because single mistake resulted into a
heavy loss. Furthermore, facilitation is requisite to offer various patients in order to acquire their
feedback on particular change.
Process used for scoping the project.
There are different processes through which scoping of the project can be done. It is
mentioned below:
Timeline: Every solution require time limit within which it should be properly
implemented within organisation. From the above case, decision making process is implemented
properly within a period of two to three months as it requires necessary modifications in different
policies and regulations and development of new decision requires time. So period of one month
is sufficient to establish changes and modification in hospital.
Consultations: By modifying hospital procedures, managers have consulted doctors
from different departments and top level management. As they are the foundations of hospital
and every employee will work according to that, so they should be precise and accurate.

Reporting: Necessary changes and alterations are reported to all staff members which
includes nursing staff, workers, management, etc. as they will perform duties and should know
the changes taken by seniors.
Reference group: Reference groups in projects are the people who can influence existing
operations through their ideas and opinion. The patient and professionals advice is considered so
that undertaken project can be fulfilled in the right manner. The consideration of the values and
opinions of stakeholders will be helpful in formulation of right decisions for the institution.
Apart from this, inter-professional members are also engaged in the change because
acquisition of their opinion is highly indispensable for minimizing probabilities of confusion. In
fact, various other specialist of different sector is having their own views and perspective
towards implementation of modification.
Evaluation
Potential outcomes of this project in Bedford Hospital are improved performance by
employees, increased mutual understanding between inter professionals, better services provided
to patients, more satisfied patients and families, increased efficiency of management and nursing
staff, etc. With improved decision making process, above things can be improved. This leads to
greater profitability and satisfaction from patient side as well as employees.
Professionals manager can check the progress of new changes and implementation of
decisions at some interval of time in order to measure the efficiency and extent to which it is
followed by staff and other members. Evaluation keep the progress on track and help in
identifying issues if present. Those problems can be resolved by implementing better decisions.
Basically, two types of methods are identified for evaluating the change which are distinct from
each other and certain situation. For example; Formative and Summative. Basically, formative
method of evaluation is all about testing the entire change with the use of proper procedures by
applying it on current time period. On the other hand, summative one is all about comparing the
result or outcome with some set of benchmarks in order to analyse the difference as well as
understand the need of improvement.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it can be concluded that bad decision can lead to improper
management and decrease in hospital efficiency. It is the responsibility of seniors to develop

better decision for hospitals and if there is lack of coordination between them can lead to
formulation of bad decisions. This can lead to harmful consequences and can effect patients as
well as reputation of hospital. So, with the implementation of better decision making process by
taking mutual consent from every professional doctors can increase hospital as well as employee
efficiency.

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