Strategies for Improving Partnership Working in Health and Social Care

This report delves into the intricacies of partnership working within the health and social care (HSC) sector, focusing on a case study involving a Mental Health Trust. It explores various models of partnership, including collaboration and empowerment, and examines the adoption of relevant legislation like the Care Act 2014 and the Mental Capacity Act 2005. The report highlights the impact of differing working practices and policies on teamwork, as well as potential barriers such as communication issues, geographical distance, and financial constraints. Strategies for improvement are proposed, emphasizing effectual communication, proper leadership, and the importance of conveying information to service users. The analysis also considers the potential outcomes of effective partnership working for professionals, service users, and organizations, providing insights into how to overcome challenges and enhance the quality of care provided. The report utilizes a specific case study of a care manager and a 68 year old patient to highlight the practical applications and implications of partnership working. The overall goal is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the benefits and challenges of collaborative approaches in HSC settings, with a focus on improving service delivery and patient outcomes.

WORKING IN
PARTNERSHIP

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................1
3.3 Strategies for improving partnership working in health and social care..........................1
2.1 Various models of partnership..........................................................................................2
2.2 Adoption of present legislation, organisations practice and policies in partnership working
................................................................................................................................................3
2.3 Impact of differences in working practices & policies on team work in HSC.................4
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................4
3.2 Potential barriers to partnership working in health and social care services....................4
3.1 Possible outcomes of working in partnership for professionals, service user and
organisation............................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
In health and social care, Partnership can be simply referred as working of two or more
persons or corporation together in order to attain maximal advantages of accessible assets and
convert that into some benefits (Parrott, 2014). This is basically done for the well - being of the
society. Better cooperation amongst the enterprises of HSC relies on the way of its
implementation and maintenance. The current report is based on Mental Health Trust. It is
segmented into different parts highlighting several aspects associated with partnership working.
In this project various schemes has been discussed which would help in upgrading the overall
performance of cooperative working.
TASK 2
3.3 Strategies for improving partnership working in health and social care
According to the case study, a regional community health group has newly allied with
Mental health trust. Different kinds of issues are observed after analysing its scenario. The main
territorial conflict occurs among various staffs members like occupational therapists, social
workers, psychiatric nurses and psychologists across. This leads to the emergence of
disagreement over the chiseled mental health services as well as group of service user where - in
all agency and employees are responsible for this. In addition to this, issues linked with
communication is also recognised (Squires, Gottdiener and Pickvance, 2012). Patients have been
complaining about the workers to the Care quality commission and stating that they are not
communicating effectively with them. Apart from inappropriate sharing of information; poorer
support as well as bad quality of caring is also seen here.
Thus, it is important to make certain strategies for dealing with these circumstances so
that improvement can be done in this partnership working. Key plan of action for doing the same
has been discussed below :
 Effectual communication among agencies : Since here workers are performing together
in different groups, so they should formulate mutual terminologies and design specific
targets and work for achieving the common ambitions by helping each other. For
implementing this, they need to convey such goals in effective manner and this could be
done by arranging multidisciplinary meetings on regular basis.
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 Proper leadership : Each and every work performed by particular member ought be be
in supervision of skilled leaders. Therefore, good guidance have to be provided by
managers as well as leaders in this context and they ought to assure that collaborative
work is conducted so that aims can be achieved in appropriate manner. This will also
improve the whole quality of services which are being offered to patients (Glasby and
Dickinson, 2014).
 Conveying all information to service users : Every data inter- related with clients
should be transferred to them so that they take proper steps as per that and do not commit
any mistake.
2.1 Various models of partnership
There are different model of partnership that could be applied here. The main one are
discussed as follows :
 Collaboration model : This framework can be used for doing collaborative work since
several mental health associations and personnels are coming together for sharing their
ideas as well as cognitions on special aspects so that such area would be upgraded. This
in turn will improve the performance of team, their level of connection. By this way, facts
and figures would be conveyed to each and every associate who are participating in this
chore.
 Empowerment model : In context to HSC, empowering simply means catering ability to
some one so that individual can gain freedom for taking own decision and thus could
control on their lives easily. By examining the case study, specific issues associated with
duties and obligations of local psychical heath unit community and staff associates of
mental wellness trust. Thus, this model is suited here as each member will attain effective
power and they can work for accomplishing their aims. In addition to it, by taking use of
this framework, it can also be ensured that every one (Care users) is getting informed
regarding overall prospects of their services (World Health Organization, 2013). Hereby
they would receive the chances of taking personal decisions in terms of their care and
could state own desires as well as requirements to particular health professionals from
whom they will be treated. Thus, it can be said that the beauty of this empowering theory
is its assistance in the field of improvement of communication among consumers and
mental healthcare workers. Besides this, such procedures of decisions would be enforced
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amongst various like nurses & other employees regardless of their position and parts so
that they can support in offering proper caring. Additionally, working nature of
occupational personnels as well as social workers could be improved and at last all of
them become capable of achieving their communal objectives.
2.2 Adoption of present legislation, organisations practice and policies in partnership working
Government has build specific norms and regulations for maintaining discipline and
controlling on unfair activities. Certain laws and policies which could be imposed in
collaborative working are given below :
 Care Act 2014 : This rule was come into effect from 1st April 2015 which is representing
the large epochal reforms of support & care in around over sixty years, thus is making
control on carers as well as patients so that development can be accomplished
efficaciously. As per this legislation, Mental Health Trusts has to guarantee that each of
their service takers are comprising of whole data and facts. In addition to this, they
should also ensure that advices are catering to those people as per their need so that they
could make conclusions in terms of their caring (England, Liverman, Schultz and
Strawbridge, 2012). Apart from this, teams of psychical welfare trust has to generate
partnership working which is considered as person-centred. By this way sharing of
information as well as thoughts can be carried on and as a fruitful result, total quality of
services get improves drastically.
 Mental Capacity Act 2005 : The fundamental motto of this norm is to empower such
individuals who are not capable of making their plans as well as determining any thing.
In accordance to this rule, everyone is having the power for making decisions regarding
their personalised lives and in turn they would stay happy and satisfied. Identical
situation is being enforced on the patients, who are taking services in the psychic
hospitals. The occupational groups like localised government, societal services, police,
mental welfare services, and the families, etc. ; each needed to evaluate the intellectual
capableness of an individual prior to the making of any type of judgement of the another
parties that would influence on the existence of that person (Devries and et. al., 2013).
Every connected agencies require to work decently since they are affecting on the
services' users in order to raise the living standards of customers.
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2.3 Impact of differences in working practices & policies on team work in HSC
Since in partnership working, different types of staffs are present and it is obvious that
their level of thinking will be varied on particular situation. As per the given scenario, two
variances of work activities and standards associated with mental health group are risk
assessment process and united or agreed structure of working. In context to agree manner of
work, since every employee is having contrasting codes of exercises and ambitions. Hence, it
will create conflicts among all individuals and is proved to be more problematical. For instance,
a social or cultural staff will emphasis on the problems linked with societal and precautioning of
a client to order to reinstate them into their community. On the other hand, a nurse might work
with a medical specialist for assuring that they are following their treatment programmes as well
as monitoring their psychogenic wellness evidences and progresses (Brownson, Colditz and
Proctor, 2017). Hence, both of them will work on different grounds and as a bad result,
conflicting conditions will emerges. In addition to this, both of them also follows variant policies
as per their official chores.
Coming to the matter of handling of risk, herein perspective linking with social workers
and those nurses are different in nature. Socialist employee will measure the situation associated
with an individual who is being at risk to themselves of another in the assemblage & the hazard
of such people relapses into their former psychic level. Where as a nurse would work on totally
different aspect. They might do consultation with the specialist if they found any person's status
is being stable through medicinal drug or some therapies. Additionally, such person could be
sufficiently provided treatment so situations can be handled in correct manner.
TASK 3
3.2 Potential barriers to partnership working in health and social care services
As per the case study, Mr Joe Simpkins who is a care manager is having a customer's
case of Mrs Mary (68 years old). She is needing permanent nursing placement at her home since
they are not able to go anywhere due to her age. Therefore, so many issues are coming in this
way and she is not attained such services till now. The key barriers which are emerging are
mentioned below :
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 Greater distance : This has been observed that there are no accessibility of any social
services who would supply contracted facilities at homes within 40 miles. Thus, she is
not bale to receive those services associated with beds.
 Lack of communication : When district nurses had visited at the house of Mrs Mary,
they understand her as well as her family members existing condition which was very
depressed – full. But they stated that they have not been reported about such serious
situations of the patient. So, there is seen miscommunication in this scene (Bowling,
2014).
 Lack of money : It has also viewed that some private nursing organisations were present
but the level or range of payments could not afforded by the family members of user.
3.1 Possible outcomes of working in partnership for professionals, service user and organisation
By examining the given case scenario, some of the potential outcomes of affiliation
working for service consumers, professionals as well as enterprise are stated below :
 Empowerment aids in increasing the performance when this is linked with the working in
partnership. Here in patient will receive the right of expressing their own needs and
demand services in accordance with that. Thus, Mrs Mary would be gain advantages in
terms of her medication if this might happen.
 Some other result which can be highlighted is that coalitions will guarantee that Mrs
Mary may attain each and every services in accordance to their health status. Still, there
were issues regarding beds or resources, then just authorising the client does not meant
that it could change her wellness and develop the same (Baldwin, 2016).
 From seeing the mentioned case, it can be said that social workers and nurses are not
comprising of broader or clear functions and duties. Thus, it is being uncleared that who
is accountable for the total caring of Mrs Mary whether nurses or social workers. So, this
is adversely affecting user since her condition is getting worsen day on day. Apart from
that, there are also not clear rules or regulations which could be followed accordingly.
Hence, it will be better to collaborate with one another, instead of blaming societal
services or nurses for Mrs Mary since she has not been rendered with a bed at any care
home.
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 In order to overcome above based situation, it can be said that there is a necessity of a
caring co-ordinator who is having the responsibility of setting out a clear plan affiliated
with care.
CONCLUSION
From the above based report, it can be summarised that partnership working is an
eminent concept in the area of health and social caring which can be applied in every
organisations dealing in this sector. This helps in upgrading the whole performance since large
number of staffs come together to work in a team and are having the same motive; so
performance or productivity increases automatically. Certain legislation like Care Act 2014 has
been discussed in this assignment that is needed to be followed by each and every venture. In
addition to this, different strategies for dealing with particular issues has also been explained
clearly in this assignment.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Baldwin, M., 2016. Social work, critical reflection and the learning organization. Routledge.
Bowling, A., 2014. Research methods in health: investigating health and health services.
McGraw-Hill Education (UK).
Brownson, R. C., Colditz, G. A. and Proctor, E. K. eds., 2017. Dissemination and
implementation research in health: translating science to practice. Oxford University
Press.
Devries, K. M. and et. al., 2013. The global prevalence of intimate partner violence against
women. Science. 340(6140). pp. 1527-1528.
England, M. J., Liverman, C. T., Schultz, A. M. and Strawbridge, L. M., 2012. Epilepsy across
the spectrum: Promoting health and understanding.: A summary of the Institute of
Medicine report. Epilepsy & Behavior. 25(2). pp. 266-276.
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.
Parrott, L., 2014. Values and ethics in social work practice. Learning Matters.
Squires, G., Gottdiener, M. and Pickvance, C., 2012. Partnership and the pursuit of the private
city. The Urban Sociology Reader.pp. 118-126.
ten Hoope-Bender, P., and et. al., 2014. Improvement of maternal and newborn health through
midwifery.The Lancet. 384(9949). pp.1226-1235.
Tew, J. and et. al. , 2012. Social factors and recovery from mental health difficulties: a review of
the evidence. The British Journal of Social Work. 42(3). pp. 443-460.
World Health Organization, 2013. Global and regional estimates of violence against women:
prevalence and health effects of intimate partner violence and non-partner sexual
violence. World Health Organization.
World Health Organization, 2013. Responding to intimate partner violence and sexual violence
against women: WHO clinical and policy guidelines. World Health Organization.
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