The Philosophy Of Working In Partnership In Health And Social Care

In relation own experience in adult and/or children’s services in health and social care settings this section explains the philosophy of working in partnership.

There has been promotion of integrated health and social care services within national policy, which can be achieved through partnerships/ inter- agency teams. Dickinson (2006) and Coxon ((2005) concur with the earlier statement and point out that in recent years, the concept of partnership and collaborative working have come to the fore within the UK and other European countries. Partnerships have been core to the way New Labour envisioned modern health and social services. Working in partnership means working together across the different sections, or divide resulting in better outcomes for service users (Dickinson, 2006) . The practice of working in partnership takes place in various ways for example; there can be partnerships in integrated care whereby service sectors such as health and social care work together. It can also take place between professionals for example, nurses, social workers and doctors and between settings, that is, within hospital and community, primary and secondary care (Petch, 2012). Partnership can also take place between types of care for example in acute and long term (Coxon, 2005).

There is evidence that suggests that working in partnership improves inter-professional understanding and relations (Pickard 2008) and access to services for service users is enhanced (Brown et al. 2002). When professionals work in partnership it brings about a range of benefits such as economy, efficiency and effectiveness. There are a range of benefits accrued to the service user such as enhanced quality of care in terms of support in out of clinical areas...

... middle of paper ...

...and through their education and qualification they are ranked to be of higher status (Wistow and Hardy, 1991). For example, doctors have higher status and power over nurses. However, such a power difference may be allowed in hospital because the doctors make most decisions concerning patient care which the nurse acts upon. Conversely, if a doctor were to work in collaboration with social workers they may still perceive themselves to have higher power and status. The inferiority of status imposed then becomes a problem of working in partnerships. For partnerships to work, each professional and staff within it has to be treated with mutual respect and all services seen as vital to patient/ service user. Also, poor understanding of the aims of a partnership and poor attention to the development of skills of all people involved are a barrier to effective partnerships.