Health

Working in partnership with service users is said to be important in Health and Social Care Practice: Multi-agency working practice

Introduction

Partnership working practice in the health and social care practice is essential for the service users and the service providers to meet the gap between the expectation of the service users and the quality of health and social care service delivered by the health and social care professionals through developing multi-agency working practice (Glasby and Dickinson, 2014). Multi-agency working practice provides an opportunity to the service providers to deliver efficient treatment and care to the service users by maintaining the quality of the health and social care service so that it is easy to meet the expectations and preferences of the service users in the health and social care institutions. The aim of the essay is to understand the concept of multi-agency working practice with the service users in the health and social care by empowering the patients in the decision-making practice so that it is easy to acknowledge the actual needs and preferences of the patients and meet their expectations by delivering quality care and support.

Multi-agency working practice is one of the effective ways to deliver appropriate services to the people with multiple needs through working with collaboration and communication. Though multi-agency working practice, it is posisbel for the service providers to identify the actual needs and preferences of the service users and cooperate with them for maximising their values (Robert et al., 2015). The multi-agency working practice includes coordination with the physician, education on healthy diets and weight, concentrating on providing 24*7 service to the patient, involving the patient in the Medicare planning and therapy, health evaluation and improving day to day living through enhancing communication and cooperation. Through multi-agency working practice, it is possible for the service providers to share decision making practice with the family and also with the patients in care decision so that it is easy to treat the individual with cooperation and interaction. Hereby, proper empowerment, respecting personal preferences of the patients, high communication, cooperation with the patients and their families as well as working in partnership basis and engagement with the patient are important to deliver high quality health and social care service where the multi-agency working practice provide a scope to the health and social care professionals to work as a team and met the expectations of the patients successfully.

As per the Townleys model of multi-agency working practice, there are three level of working through which the team members can develop an effective team for working in a partnership basis to meet the common strategic goal of the organisation. The three steps are such as autonomous working, coordinated working and integrated working. Under the autonomous working practice, all the nurses and other health care professionals work as a team to meet the common objective of maximising patient’s safety and security where all the members try to serve as a common agency (Smith, Swallow and Coyne, 2015). Organisational structure and training and development program in this regard are helpful to enhance the knowledge and skill of the staff members at the nursing homes to deliver high quality health and social care service to the patients. Coordinated working practice in this regard is also beneficial for the team members at the health and social care institution where all the stakeholders of the care home try to coordinate for maximising the organisational strategic goal of creating values for the end service users. In this regard, proper coordination among all the stakeholders including the nurses, doctors, physicians, therapist and ground managers as well as social workers are advantageous for enhancing the performnace of the team which raises the quality standard of the health and social care service. Integrated working practice this regard is also beneficial for the team members where they try to deliver integrated service to the patients through cooperation and communication where the team members can share their values and experience to treat the patients efficiently.

The service user’s involvement is said to be important in the health and social care organisations for developing the practice of multi-agency working practice through cooperation with the patients and their families. Without proper engagement with the service users, it is difficult for the care professionals to diagnose the patients efficiently and develop proper care plan after acknowledging the actual health needs and personal preferences of the patients (Millar, Chambers and Giles, 2016). Multi-agency working practice is therefore important to involve the patients and their families in the care plan and decision-making practice where the patients can feel free to express their experience and preferences with the service providers where it become easy for the care professionals to diagnose the individual and understand their needs so that they can deliver quality health and social care service to the individuals. The health care professionals can understand the demand of the service users and maintain transparency, empower the patients as well as respect their preferences for developing personal care plan so that it is easy to maximise values for the patients and meet their expectations successfully. Hereby, proper empowerment, respecting personal preferences of the patients, high communication, cooperation with the patients and their families as well as multi-agency working practice and engagement with the patient are beneficial to deliver integrated health and social care service (West et al., 2014).

As per the model of multi-agency working practice, the contributing factors for developing an effective team to work together are such as information exchange, planning action, coordination and cooperation, enhancing communication, partnership working practice and implementing the project planning through empowering all the stakeholders through which it is possible for the health and social care professionals to enhance the working practice at the care home (Ndoro, 2014). For example, multi-agency working practice is beneficial for the nursing home mainly in the UK public care home to enhance patient’s safety and security where all the team members including nurses, doctors, health acre professionals and social workers are working together to serve better care and support to the social communities as a whole where all the citizens in the UK can access the quality are and improve their living standard successfully. Hereby, the strategy of multi-agency working practice is beneficial for the social communities to enhance their values and live better lives like other where all the patients are empowered in the decision-making practice and it helps the patients to feel safe and express their needs and preferences with the health care professionals. Additionally, positive organisational culture, treating all the patients fairly as well as managing transparency and accountability are also helpful to involve the individuals and create suitable organisational environment where the patients can feel safe to stay and share their experience with the care professionals as well as it is posisbel to enhance multi-agency working practice at the hospitals. As a service provider in the UK Public Hospital, it is hereby necessary to enhance communication through open discussion, interview and providing training with the service users as well as their families so that it is easy to respect their preferences and dignity as well as build relationship and trust with the patients and their families (Sims, Hewitt and Harris, 2015). This further helps to enhance multi-agency working practice where all the stakeholders including the patients, nurses, practitioners, doctors and other health care professionals are involved in the decision-making practice and work together through sharing information and their experience with others.

In this regard, the safeguarding principle and Care Act 2014 are useful to follow suitable legislations and the guidance of Care Quality Commission (CQC) where it is easy to enhance the multi-agency working practice at the hospitals where all the members try to follow the guidance and enhance the quality standard of the hospitals through the practice of multi-agency working (Jasper et al., 2016). The benefits of multi-agency working practice is that it is easy to enhance communication and collaboration at the hospitals where all the team members try to develop an effective team and achieve success through delivering integrated service and efficient treatment to the patients. Moreover, the health and social care institutions can enhance the overall performnace through multi-agency working practice where all the members aim at developing patient’s safety and security. Proper funding, sharing knowledge and experience with others and improving the knowledge and technical skill of the team members can also be posisbel through the multi-agency working practice at the hospitals (Rycroft-Malone et al., 2015). Additionally, organisational resource utilisation as well as enhancing proficiency to serve the patients are other advantages of the multi-agency working practice. On the other hand, there are some barriers of developing multi-agency working practice at the workplace of health and social care institutions such as lack of communication, resistance to change, language barriers, internal conflicts among the staff and negative organisational culture which may raise the issue among the staff members including the patients for which working in a partnership with the service users cannot be developed (Biordi et al., 2015). Organisational culture is one of the main factors for multi-agency working practice where transparency and accountability must be maintained as well as the staff members need to communicate with positive attitude and share their experience with each other for successful multi-agency working practice.

In order to mitigate the above-mentioned challenges, it is necessary for the service providers to develop communication, create suitable environment with maintaining transparent and accountability, improve patient involvement in developing personal care planning and improve engagement with all the staff members, health care professionals and service providers at the hospitals so that all the stakeholders including the patients are treated fairly. For example, as a service provider at the Public hospitals in the UK, it is the role of the service provider to improve engagement with patient and understand the needs and personal preferences of the individual. It is also important for the service providers to develop an effective team with communication and interaction with other staff members, nurses, physician, therapist and care professionals as well as with the patients and their families so that it is easy to develop an effective multi-agency working practice. It is also required to implement the Information and Communication technology (ICT) in the public hospital in the UK so that the health records and the personal information of the patients can be maintained safely with following the Data Protection Act 1998. This is beneficial for the public hospital to build trust and loyalty among the patients where the service providers can convince the individuals to share their personal experience and previous health records as well as their personal preferences so that it is easy to develop personal care plan which in turn helps to create patient centred approach at the public hospitals in the UK. Multi-agency working practice in this regard helps to cooperate with the patients and empower the service users in the decision-making practice so that the service providers can understand the requirements of the patients and deliver quality care and best possible treatment to the patients.

It can be concluded that, the multi-agency working practice is beneficial for the service providers to work in a partnership basis and enhance the service quality where it is easy to create values for the patients. Involvement with the patients as well as engagement among the staff members, doctors and health care professionals are effective to enhance the multi-agency working practice. It in turn helps to enhance communication and share information with each other at the hospitals as well as cooperate for providing bets treatment and quality acre to the service users of the public hospitals. Focusing on dignity, respecting patient’s needs, maintaining transparency and accountability and increasing involvement of the patients in the care decisions through communication and collaboration are also the advantages of such practice of multi-agency working in the health and social care institutions which in turn provides an opportunity to the care professionals to deliver high quality service and maximise patient care and create values for them. Hereby, partnership working practice depends on multi-agency working practice where all the stakeholders in health and social care institutions including the nurses, doctors, physicians, health care professionals, patients, practitioners, government and the social workers cooperate and communicate for improving integrated health and social care service.