Analysis of Working in Partnership in Health and Social Care

This report examines the critical aspects of partnership working within health and social care, focusing on the Mid Staffordshire NHS foundation Trust. It begins by defining partnership and discussing the philosophies that underpin effective collaboration, such as empowerment, respect, and independence. The report then delves into various partnership relationships, including general, limited, and at-will relationships, emphasizing the importance of clear communication and cooperation. It also explores different partnership models, including unified, coalition, and hybrid models, and their implications for service delivery. Furthermore, the report analyzes current legislation and organizational practices, such as the Mental Health Act and Children Act, highlighting their impact on patient care. It concludes by outlining potential outcomes, barriers, and strategies to improve partnership working, aiming to enhance the quality and efficiency of healthcare services.

WORKING IN
PARTNERSHIP IN HEALTH
AND SOCIAL CARE

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1 ...........................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Philosophy of working in partnership in health and social care...........................................1
1.2 Partnership relationships within health and social care services..........................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................4
2.1 Models of partnership...........................................................................................................4
2.2 Current legislation and organisational practices and policies...............................................6
2.3 Differences in working practices and policies......................................................................7
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................8
3.1 Possible outcomes of partnership working...........................................................................8
3.2 Potential barriers to partnership working..............................................................................9
3.3 Strategies to improve outcomes of partnership...................................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Working in partnership can be defined as to share task and activities with colleagues
which are required to be performed for attaining desired outcomes. The partnership is effective
as well as efficient factor that is capable to perform in appropriate manner with coordination and
cooperation to complete particular project for achieving better results in organisation (Brett and
et.al., 2014) . In case of working in health care firm, then partnership is mandatory because
various kinds of staff members have different tasks and they required accurate information about
medical reports like blood test, EEG, ECG, CT Scan, MRI etc. of patient which is compulsory
for continuing the treatment of in appropriate manner to help them becoming well being. This
report is based on Mid Staffordshire NHS foundation Trust is an organisation which manage two
hospitals like Stafford and Cannock Chase. This trust is serving 320000 people along with 3000
number of staff members worked in two hospitals. This assignment will discuss about
philosophy working in partnerships with having better relationship in health and social care. It
also includes models, present legislations, practices, policies of performing in hospitals. This is
necessary to determine the several possible outcomes, potential barriers along with effective
strategies to improve results while working in partnership in health and social care organisation.
TASK 1
1.1 Philosophy of working in partnership in health and social care
There are various kinds of philosophies which are mandatory to working in partnership to
improve services in health and social care. It is essential for organisations to improver their
policies and practices so that they can provide an effective as well as efficient treatment to the
patient as per their disease or issue. The Mid Staffordshire NHS foundation Trust have to
observe their current philosophies of performing tasks or procedure to improve them for
enhancing standards of service to support an individual to get rid off the health issue (Care
Quality Commission, 2010) . Some of philosophies of working in partnership which can be
implemented by Philosophy of working in partnership are described below:
Empowerment:- This can be defined as specific policies which facilitates management
of information sharing, reward partaking and power allotment so that an individual become
capable to make sudden decision as per demand of situation. It is all about to make an effective
as well as efficient employees ad render them an authority to make several decisions in their own
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to solve particular problem at the time of diagnosing a patient to gain desired results. The Mid
Staffordshire NHS foundation Trust may apply this type of philosophy to improve service of
treatment to make people healthy and well being in appropriate way.
(Source:Unit 5 Working in Partnership in Health and Social Care, 2018)
Respect:- There are different types of fundamental rights and standards which states to
follow them while treating any patient. Such aspects includes to respect the senior citizens,
provide proper care and medical dose in accurate time. It is essential for medical professionals to
take care of person's health rather then their profits of money. The Mid Staffordshire NHS
foundation Trust have to implement philosophy of patient (Carlisle, 2010) .
centred culture, no tolerance of non-compliance with fundamental standards to render
appropriate diagnosis to people to gain satisfaction of them. It is necessary to make an essential
policy to respect patients and provide them comfortable treatment for solving health issue.
Independence:- This can be defined about rights of a person according to which they are
able to select the kind of treatment that suits on their body or accept by immune system.
Different people have dissimilar types of problem or allergies which does not accept specific
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Illustration 1: Unit 5 Working in Partnership in Health
and Social Care

element of medication then medical professionals have to change technique of treatment. The
Mid Staffordshire NHS foundation Trust have to take care of body reaction after started the
medication and make sure that it suits an individual or not and then change it as per requirement.
Making informed choices:- The factor of making informed practices can be considered
as most essential principle for running a health care organisation. It is important to provide
desired information about treatment techniques and medicines which are utilised to make an
individual healthy. The Mid Staffordshire NHS foundation Trust have to render knowledge to
people so that they will covey about their issues or allergic problems to doctor to have an
appropriate diagnosis.
The above mentioned philosophies render support to provide an effective as well as
efficient treatment to people for solving their health issues and problems (Dickinson and Glasby,
2010) .
1.2 Partnership relationships within health and social care services
Partnership can be described to share anything which may be a work or profits in any
reference. Working in health and social care with partnership is an effective criteria to perform a
specific tasks more properly to generate desired outcomes. It is essential to establish an effective
and healthy relationships between employees to work together and attain desirable outcomes in
Mid Staffordshire NHS foundation Trust to carrying out various kinds of medication procedures
properly. In case of healthcare, a single mistake due to miscommunication of staff may results in
huge problem. There are different types of relations which impacts on performance are given
below:
General relationship :- This kind of relations refers to normal professional relationship
which is usually build automatically between people who are working together in same team,
group or company. There are general interaction amongst several staff members that is required
to exchange desired information about information for performing a specific task or procedure.
General relation is for establishing an coordination between people to work together on same
activity or event in health and social care (Ellis, 2011) .
Limited relationship :- There is a kind of relation which build to perform procedures
together in different teams like finance team and supply team of a particular organisation. There
are various types of events which are necessary to be done with cooperation of dissimilar
departments to complete same tasks for desired results.
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Relationship at will:- This types of relations are established while required like supply
team interacts with vendors only there is need of equipments or products in health and social care
to conduct several treatment activities for achieving desired outcomes.
There above mentioned relationships are helpful to performing tasks and procedures in
Mid Staffordshire NHS foundation Trust to establish cooperation and coordination. This will
help to perform more effectively as well as efficiently to generate better results (Fotaki, 2011) .
Some of terms to acknowledging partnerships are given below:
 Collaboration and cooperation with each other to work properly.
 Participating several issues along with its consequences.
 Performing in team, shared learning and working with leading people.
 It is necessary to share experienced knowledge to group members so that activities or
procedures can be carried out properly.
 This can be helpful to attain better potentials of networking and performing in team or
venturing jointly.
The relationships are not only established between employees or relevant people to
company activities. It is also essential to behave in appropriate manner to make patient
comfortable and ready to take treatment of particular disease. It is important to make an
individual morally strong for several complicated procedures such as surgery, chemo therapy,
transplants etc.
TASK 2
2.1 Models of partnership
There are various kinds of models that can be implemented in health care organisations
for improving their services to solve issues or patients. Every heal agency has their own nature
according to which they have to work on these problems (Gardiner , Gott and Ingleton, 2012) .
Different types of models have dissimilar impacts upon various organisations and situations then
it is compulsory to first observe, analyses and evaluate condition along with determining positive
or negative effects on organisational aspects to gain benefits. The Mid Staffordshire NHS
foundation Trust mat apply several models that are described below:
Unified Model :- This can be described as to to work together in whole organisation as
per criteria of single management systems including various tasks or procedures to perform. It is
necessary to convey detailed information about policies of particular system to workers so that
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they become able to work in correct manner for attaining desired outcomes. A single and simple
organisational structure is beneficial because it is easy to understand which facilitate to gain
better outcomes. This results that people can follow more properly and perform in right direction
to achieving desired outputs (Glasby and Dickinson, 2014) .
Benefits
 It provides single system foe all services delivery which reduce confusion.
 It involves all types of health and care activities or procedures.
 It includes separate financial system and follow only one strategic approach that carries
set of goals.
Coalition Model :- This model involves criteria of activities or procedures which are
carried out separately. Such events or processes are connected with each other for conducting in
separate way to gain desired outcomes. It means that various types of activities such as
management, staffing, training and so on are carried out separately but are interconnected to one
another.
Benefits
 Several procedures an services cooperate in joint actions.
 An individual performs then it is not necessary to have data of each and every activity
along with segments.
 It includes that segments are only work on those events which are assigned to them.
Hybrid Model :- The term hybrid, model can be described the combined form of two
models for completing desires of an organisation such as Mid Staffordshire NHS foundation
Trust. Sometimes, it is observed that single model is somehow insufficient to fulfil desired
results of performance (Golding, 2010) . This is essential to make a hybrid model with
requirements of organisations by making a combinations of two different models for
implementation to get better desires.
The above mentioned models are beneficial to apply in organisations as per requirements
to complete various types of tasks or activities for attaining desired results. It is important to
make effective as well as efficient performance to get better outcomes.
2.2 Current legislation and organisational practices and policies
There are various kinds of legislations which are mandatory to be followed by
organisations while conducting several activities and processes to gain desired outputs. The Mid
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Staffordshire NHS foundation Trust have to to build several effective practices and policies as
per legal rules or norms to run business successfully. In case of health and social care, there are
various legislations which are compulsory to be considered by welfare agencies while treating an
individual to solve their health issues or problems. Some of legislations are given below:
Mental Health Act :- There are various kinds of mental issue in which a patient becomes
unconscious and do several things which are harmful to other people (Lowes and Hulatt, 2013) .
To deal with such patients, there are several legislations, made by legal authorities or local or
central government that re required to be follow by health organisation like Mid Staffordshire
NHS foundation Trust. Certain mental issues are very critical, in which an individual injured
others or themselves and to render support for conducting treatment.
Children Act :- The government of country has made various legal rules or norms
through which they can reduce number of child labour in nation. Hiring of children is illegal as
per child labour act. It is important to provide safe and secure life top children of country along
with rendering education for free of cost because they are future of nation that takes it to
achieving desired success. Some of factors which includes in this act are like be healthy, stay
safe, achieve economic well being, make positive contribution along with enjoy and achieve.
Human Rights Act :- There are different types of fundamental rights which are
mandatory to follow while providing any kind of treatment to particular patient. It is essential to
make openness, transparency and candour throughout the system and convey truth about
treatment procedure to patient and their family members (Lymbery, 2010) . The Mid
Staffordshire NHS foundation Trust have to apply such policies according to which staff
members have to behave appropriately with senior citizens and take care of an individual
properly.
Mental capacity act :- Every person has different types of thoughts along with stability
which impacts on treatment. Medical professionals always mentioned a fact that will power is
mandatory for achieving desired results from methods of diagnosing an individual accurately.
They are essential to make an effective as well as efficient techniques to deal with different types
of people. Mental capacity act described about to deal with patients to gain better results.
The above mentioned legislations are essential to follow by various health and social are
organisations. It is necessary to make different effective practices as well as policies to carrying
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out important activities or tasks to make desirable outcomes in order to provide efficient
treatment to needy people (Millar and Hall, 2013) .
2.3 Differences in working practices and policies
There are different types of practices and policies which are mandatory to be applied in
an organisation to carried out various activities of procedures for achieving desirable outputs.
Health care institutions have several practices as per different types of diseases along with its
criteria of diagnosing health issue to detect symptoms and conduct certain necessary tests for
providing an appropriate treatment to patient for solving it properly. It is important to maintain
standards of services through building working practices and policies. Some practices of the
business organisation is mentioned below:
 Government Body: It is the responsibility of government body that lend number of help
to the health sector which is related to finance, arrangements and many other. They
always focus delivering distinctive features (Munn-Giddings and Winter, 2013) .
 Educational Services: there are number of institutions that provide educational services to
the people that are present in the society that include colleges, schools which deliver
number of distinctive services to their customers in order to increase their skills and
knowledge. Hence, there is difference in their working practices and policies that are
present in this organisation system.
 There are number of options that pose huge impact on the organisation system which is
directly influence the decision making process for the organisational system. There are
number of policies that are framed that concentrates on causing positive and negative
effects on the overall system which delivers several types of services to these
organisation.
After the above discussion it has been concluded that there are number of working
practices and policies which posses distinctive functions and features and has to be consider
while carrying out their working procedures in effective and efficient manner (Øvretveit,
Hansson and Brommels, 2010) . The Mid Staffordshire NHS foundation Trust should make
several policies to boost up performance to make patient healthy and well being by solving
health issue with an appropriate method or treatment techniques to get desired outcomes.
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TASK 3
3.1 Possible outcomes of partnership working
Partnership working is beneficial perform any required tasks or procedures for gaining
outcomes. Several types of positive and negative outputs are attained through this techniques of
partnership working in organisation. The Mid Staffordshire NHS foundation Trust may provide
better diagnosis to people.
Users of services :- Partnership working render support to deliver an appropriate services
to needy patients for gaining desired results through providing accurate treatments to solve
health issues.
Positive outcomes
 The nature of services of boost up in comparison of before.
 Decision making is informed in in respect of skills and abilities of staff members.
 It facilitates empowerment and autonomy.
Negative outcomes
 Several conflicts or issues may raise as harm or anger.
 Factor of arising miscommunication may increase.
 Employees of organisation get frustrated and pressurised.
 A clear fact will not be delivered to user which is may generate confusion.
 Sometimes, a kind duplicate data or service is deliver to an individual.
Professionals :- Working in partnership in professionals helps to reduce burden and
perform tasks in proper way to generate better outcomes (Petch, Cook and Miller, 2013) .
Positive outcomes
 It helps in generating an approach of professionalism which involves impeccable outputs.
 An effective as well as efficient coordination may create between employees as they
trained or educated professional in partnership to manage relationship.
 It facilitates to mention roles or duties of each and very individual in clear manner to
avoid confusion.
 It is helpful to establish an effective and organised communication takes place. The duplicity could be minimising and involves utilisation of resources.
Negative outcomes
 It facilitates rivalry between professional could be improved.
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 It may arise chances of miscommunication which can results into mistakes or loss for
organisation.
 Management of capital or funds become irregular on company which is mandatory to be
systematic.
Organisations :- Partnership helps in organising as effective co-operation as well as
coordination through which performance get improved to generate better outcomes (Reutter and
Kushner, 2010) .
Positive outcomes
 It facilitates an efficient comprehensive service provision in an organisation. It helps to work on principle of sharing in which tasks and profits get distributed amongst
team members.
Negative outcomes
 It may result into increase in cost of production because more people are performing on
same task or activity.
 Profits are shared which is kind of loss for an individual.
 Communication break down may takes place in method of partnership working.
3.2 Potential barriers to partnership working
Mid Staffordshire NHS foundation Trust have to face number of barriers and challenges
related to partnership working process. Some are discussed below:
 Barrier related to finance: Finance is consider most important resource for every
organisation as it helps in carrying out several activities in day to day business operations.
The main issue which can be raised in this respect is that gap must be arises between
public and private organisation system which lead to the generation of barrier for the
company. This is a major obstacle that will lead to generation of hindrances in front of
them that will result into slowing down of their overall performance of the company
which will create negative impact for the organisation system (Towle and et.al., 2010) .
 Barriers related to the organisational structure: Every business organisation is very
much different from each other in terms of its structure, functioning and level. Hence, this
difference in structure will lead to the generation of many problems for Mid Staffordshire
NHS foundation Trust. It is the provision that work and services are further been
classified into different sections in single organisational in partnership too. But the
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problem arises when they are not ready to adopt several types of tasks in order to deliver
specific type of services and products to the customers in market place. In today's modern
world structures are complex in nature and involve several issues that directly affect the
position and image hence, Mid Staffordshire NHS foundation Trust have to consider this
barrier.
 Barriers related to professional aspect: There are number of norms, rules and
regulations which are followed by single business organisation. Similarly, Mid
Staffordshire NHS foundation Trust also have its own belief, values that are present in
their system. When there is difference in the professional and personal aspects of each
and every partnership company, which make them necessary to follow all these set
instructions.
 Barriers related to Procedures: There are certain procedures and actions that are set and
hence have to be followed by them to carry out the work task. If there is some differences
in Mid Staffordshire NHS foundation Trust and other system that will result into
generation of worst situation hence, the need must be present to modify and alter internal
functions in to the system. When partnership structure have occurred with these barriers
than some changes have to be introduced in to the system (Barriers to Partnership
Working, 2017) .
3.3 Strategies to improve outcomes of partnership
Partnership working provides support to increase better outcomes for organisation. There
are various kinds of strategies and policies which are made by companies to improve
productivity as well as profitability of an organisation. The Mid Staffordshire NHS foundation
Trust should be prepare an effective as well as efficient policies or methods which help to
improve services which are provided to patients. This will facilitate to solve the health issue or
problems in correct manner.
Coordination and cooperation :- This can be described as to establish an effective and
efficient coordination with team members to perform together on same task for generating better
outcomes. It will help in increasing describe outputs along satisfaction of patient. Better
cooperation is necessary to work together and generating better results for solving health issue of
an individual.
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Effective communication :- It is essential to make an an effective and clear conversation
with colleagues or staff members so that its will become possible to work in appropriate manner
to create better outputs. It is necessary to convey an accurate information about particular
procedure which is mandatory to be attempt by professionals because mistakes are not accepted
in medical field as it is relevant to someone's life.
Focus on team work :- Team work spirit is an important aspect which is necessary to be
focussed by team members for generating desired outcomes. It is important to perform with
colleagues and count the whole productivity besides of considering individual's outcomes. Team
work is helpful to gain better results to complete task in accurate way. It is mandatory because
entire performance of group facilitate to decide that particular process is completed or not. For
example, in case of carrying out surgery then nurses and doctors establish a team to perform it.
They all focus on cooperation carefully to avoid any risk as it is relevant to someone's life.
Millions of operations are successful due to better understanding of team and knowledge to
perform it (Working in Partnership in Health and Social Care, 2018).
Provide training and development :- This can be described as to carrying out several
training and learning programmes to improve skills and abilities of staff members to attain their
personal and professional objectives in a desired time frame. Along with this, one thing is
determined that improvement sessions is highly beneficial for overall development of staff
members which resulted in maximization in company productivity in a defined time frame.
CONCLUSION
The above report had concluded that working in partnership can be defined as to share
task and activities with colleagues which are required to be performed for attaining desired
outcomes. There are various kinds of philosophies which are mandatory to working in
partnership to improve services in health and social care. Partnership can be described to share
anything which may be a work or profits in any reference. Different types of models have
dissimilar impacts upon various organisations and situations then it is compulsory to first
observe, analyses and evaluate condition along with determining positive or negative effects on
organisational aspects to gain benefits. There are various legislations which are compulsory to be
considered by welfare agencies while treating an individual to solve their health issues or
problems. There are different types of practices and policies which are mandatory to be applied
in an organisation to carried out various activities of procedures for achieving desirable outputs.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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Care Quality Commission, 2010.The State of Health Care and Adult Social Care in England:
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Carlisle, S., 2010. Tackling health inequalities and social exclusion through partnership and
community engagement? A reality check for policy and practice aspirations from a
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Dickinson, H. and Glasby, J., 2010. ‘Why Partnership Working Doesn't Work’ Pitfalls, problems
and possibilities in English health and social care.Public Management Review.12(6).
pp.811-828.
Ellis, K., 2011. ‘Street‐level Bureaucracy’Revisited: The Changing Face of Frontline Discretion
in Adult Social Care in England.Social Policy & Administration.45(3). pp.221-244.
Fotaki, M., 2011. Towards developing new partnerships in public services: users as consumers,
citizens and/or co‐producers in health and social care in England and Sweden.Public
Administration.89(3). pp.933-955.
Gardiner, C., Gott, M. and Ingleton, C., 2012. Factors supporting good partnership working
between generalist and specialist palliative care services: a systematic review.Br J Gen
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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.
Golding, K.S., 2010. Multi-agency and specialist working to meet the mental health needs of
children in care and adopted.Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry.15(4). pp.573-
587.
Lowes, L. and Hulatt, I. eds., 2013.Involving service users in health and social care research.
Routledge.
Lymbery, M., 2010. A new vision for adult social care? Continuities and change in the care of
older people.Critical Social Policy.30(1). pp.5-26.
Millar, R. and Hall, K., 2013. Social return on investment (SROI) and performance
measurement: The opportunities and barriers for social enterprises in health and social
care.Public Management Review.15(6). pp.923-941.
Munn-Giddings, C. and Winter, R., 2013.A handbook for action research in health and social
care. Routledge.
Øvretveit, J., Hansson, J. and Brommels, M., 2010. An integrated health and social care
organisation in Sweden: creation and structure of a unique local public health and social
care system.Health Policy.97(2). pp.113-121.
Petch, A., Cook, A. and Miller, E., 2013. Partnership working and outcomes: do health and
social care partnerships deliver for users and carers?.Health & social care in the
community.21(6). pp.623-633.
Reutter, L. and Kushner, K.E., 2010. ‘Health equity through action on the social determinants of
health’: taking up the challenge in nursing.Nursing inquiry.17(3). pp.269-280.
Towle, A., and et.al., 2010. Active patient involvement in the education of health
professionals.Medical education.44(1). pp.64-74.
Online
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Barriers to Partnership Working,2017.[ONLINE]. Available through:
<http://www.challengingbehaviour.org.uk/supporting-you/for-professionals/barriers-
partnership-working.html>.
Unit 5 Working in Partnership in Health and Social Care. 2018. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.locusassignments.com/courses/unit-5-working-in-partnership-in-health-
and-social-care/>
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