Self-Reflection on Communication and Collaboration in NHS Healthcare

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments for students. This reflective journal explores communication and collaboration in NHS.

REFLECTION

Self-reflection
Communication and collaboration are the interpersonal skills which help people in working
with one another effectively. As a health-care worker in NHS, I get to know that
communication plays a vital role in understanding each other at the workplace thus to find the
best solution to problems. I realize that openness, experimentation and trust are the core
principles of communication which also builds healthy and positive relations between people.
While in the organization, I always being open and honest towards my patients; it helps me to
recognize their diseases or issues thus to provide them with the best treatment or care at the
workplace. In order to improve my communication skills, I always read articles, newspapers
and listen to audio; it assists me to effectively interact with my colleagues and patients as
well. Along with this, I would also like to suggest that the implementation of communication
theories helps people in improving their collaboration skills. In this sense, Shannon Weaver
model of communication applies in NHS. It involves Schramm’s and Berol’s Theory- among
which Schramm’s theory is considered as the first feedback concept which involves encoding
and decoding of the message (Donelan, et. al., 2012). Beside this, Berol’s theory includes
sender, receiver, and message. Several factors are identified by Berol by which the
communication element is affected. This also includes a social system, attitude, and culture.
Apart from this, I also get to know that there are several methods of communication, i.e.
verbal, written and non-verbal; people can use these methods as per the requirement of
working conditions. Oral communication assists me in the expression of feeling by word of
mouth which is more of an informal way of communication. In an organisational
environment, I and my team make usually prefer to do oral communication as it is more
effective, reliable, and quick feedback. On the other hand, sometimes we also used non-
verbal communication to express our feeling through body language, symbols, and signs.
NHS also implements both communication methods to communicate with the employees as
well as the patients.
Being a healthcare service provider in NHS, I learned that the organisation also uses
communication technologies, such as – emails, mobile phones, digital media etc. so as to
effectively interact within the workplace climate. It helps managers and employees to find the
best solutions to problems; it turns, they will take instant decisions (Siemens and d Baker,
2012). Adoption of effective communication techniques helps me to constant connect with

team members, build up a strong team outline, transparency, trust and recognition of efforts
of each individual.
Moreover, while working in the organisation I get to know that organisational structure and
culture put a huge impact on the communication and collaboration process. I have been
overviewed that organisational structure and management of NHS establishes a healthy
infrastructure and positive working environment which provides employees and customers'
both higher satisfaction level. Our senior management formulates policies to implement
effective communication in the organisation as a whole. At the time of communicating or
interacting with patients, I always present information in an accessible way and format
sentence in such a manner as that can easily and understood by the intended audience.

References
• Siemens, G. and d Baker, R.S., 2012, April. Learning analytics and educational data
mining: towards communication and collaboration. In Proceedings of the 2nd
international conference on learning analytics and knowledge (pp. 252-254). ACM.
• Donelan, H., Kear, K. and Ramage, M., 2012. Online communication and
collaboration: A reader. Routledge.