Leadership In Health Care Teams

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The roles of leaders in health care teams are thought to be important by some researchers. Particularly in helping coordinate and integrate individuals amongst the team; this is especially important in large teams as without it work can become more demanding and difficulties in communication between individuals rise leading to higher stress levels. This is supported by research that which found that lower levels of stress amongst staff was found in the team with the largest proportion of managers (Borrill et al. n.d.). This conclusion was drawn from a research programme that was carried out over several years and 400 health care teams. These teams included primary care teams, community health care teams as well as secondary care teams and so …show more content…

Quality patient care is deemed highly important in the UK as NHS healthcare providers are required to publish a ‘Quality Account’ report about the quality of the services that they provide every year. With this the quality of services are measured by looking at patient safety, clinical effectiveness, and patient feedback about the care that they received (NHS, 2016).
Role Clarity
As mentioned previously role clarity is deemed an important element of effective teams (Mickan & Rodger, 2000; Dawson & West, 2015). Team members need clear expectations for each team member, clear responsibilities and accountabilities to optimise the team’s efficiency (Mitchell et al., 2012). Without it staff have often been left feeling overwhelmed by duties and uncertain about what their working priorities are. This can result in stress, inefficiencies and low quality patient care (Dixon-Woods et al, …show more content…

This will be useful for my leadership practice as taking this understanding forward I will ensure that my team members are well supported by providing a ‘my door’s always open’ attitude as well as regular appraisals / one-to-ones to offer support and feedback if needed. With these appraisals / one-to-ones I can reiterate the team’s goals and objectives as well as ensure that the roles of the individual are made clear.

Reflecting on my research further, it was nice to see that there had been a published study at the Trust that I am working at that found that effective teams positively impact on patient experience. I think that providing staff with some positive outcomes from their hard work, such as a published paper, would motivate and provide a sense of pride to teams across an organisation. This would be useful in future to motivate other team members and maybe bring on board the support of key stake holders within future improvement plans within a department/trust.

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