Answer :

WORKING IN PARTNERSHIP IN HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE: DEMENTIA CARE

Acknowledgement

I certify that the work that is submitted by me is fully conducted by me and I have effectively described the entire research source from which I have collected the data regarding the research. I want to thank my tutor for providing me with the continuous guide that has helped me to complete this assignment with effectiveness. I am thankful to all my classmates as well as parents for their support that has helped me to conduct this research with effectiveness. 

Thank you all,

Abstract 

This assignment is intended to describe the partnerships in health and social care for treating a patient with dementia. For creating effective partnerships in any organisation good partnerships among the service users, service providers and organisation is important. For generating effective services, it is important to share information regarding the treatment of the family of the patients so that they can get the knowledge regarding the patient's treatment process. Positive results in the partnerships can be secured if all of the service providers share the information regarding the patient with each other. However, some time complexity in the health and social care is created that can generate complexity among the caregivers that in turns generate an ineffective partnership among the care workers. Partnership mainly creates among different people with a varied range of belief and perception so that in some point their point of view can differ. This problem can only be resolved by the active involvement of management in the communication process.

Introduction: 

Methodology: 

Results or findings: 

Discussion: 

Explain the philosophy of working in partnership in health and social care (1.1) 

There are a number of philosophies, which are considered as the fundamental ideas of partnership working in HSC industry, and hence, these will be followed by the agency of dementia care. Ventola (2014) stated that UKCRC (UK Clinical Research Collaboration) has developed some policies to bring in the concept of partnership working, with different agencies to attain similar interest. The philosophies that strengthen the partnership work include empowerment, autonomy, respect and making informed decisions. 

The empowerment philosophy emphasises on the procedures through which, individuals can obtain more control over different actions and decisions that have an impact on their health. Empowering service users and caretakers is important for the building and development of an effective relationship between health care professionals and care users. All the people and agencies involved in care service and working in collaboration must be provided with the power of making decisions. The  National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 imposed an inner market in the healthcare supply for making the health care organisations enablers rather than providers of healthcare services. This act imposes a duty on the local authorities to monitor and ensure that all the people, who need social care are receiving the services, they are entitled to. Therefore, the service providers are responsible for following a set of rules while deciding and providing particular service to a particular patient (Careinfoscotland.co.uk, 2017).

According to West et al.(2014), independence/autonomy denotes the ability of decision-making that has a potential impact on the person’s life without control of his family members or others. It ensures that everyone within the agency has the autonomy to select the best thing which they feel suits their needs.Respect is another important philosophy, which should be provided to the patients and all the service providers so that they do not lose their distinctiveness. As stated by Cameron et al. (2014), making informed decisions is the most important philosophy for running a healthcare agency successfully. It is crucial for both the service users and the staffs. It indicates that decisions related to the treatment process of patients are taken based on the communication carried out among patients and their care workers. 

Evaluate partnership relationships within health and social care services (1.2)

The partnership relationship within HSC that can impact the dementia services include (Brett et al. 2014):

Dementia patients- The service providers in the agency must deal with the dementia patients properly. As the patients are not able to remember things properly and make their own decisions, therefore, the health care staffs are responsible for understanding and fulfilling the needs of the patients. They should talk with the patients' families or take any necessary decision.

Health and social workers- The top management of the agency is accountable for the foundation and growth of a partnering relationship with the health and social workers so that they can have the idea of providing effective care to the dementia patients.

Therapists- Therapists are those, who decides and provides the treatment to the patients. Therefore, collaboration with them is also important for ensuring effective care service is delivered to the patients. 

Statutory organisation- The agency can collaborate with a statutory organisation that imposes rules for dementia care. For example, the key purpose of theMental Capacity Act 2005is to offer a legislative framework for taking actions and making decisions on behalf of individuals, who are not able to make decisions for themselves (Legislation.gov.uk, 2017). Thus, working with such organisation may help the agency to perform their duties within legal boundaries. 

Similar organisation- The agency can collaborate with other agencies, that provide dementia care and interdependency between these two agencies should be limited to a definite extent. Each of the agencies should be able to stand on its own, regardless of the partnership working. Here, great attention should be provided, so that the activities of one organisation do not harm the other (Cameron et al. 2014). 

Analyse models of partnership working across the health and social care sector (2.1)

There are a number of models for partnership working for the dementia patients that help in improving the quality of care provided to them. These models include joint working, networking, multi-agency working, referral system and so on (Munn-Giddings and Winter, 2013). 

Joint working- In joint working, the patient-centred approach is followed. In this model, the partner organisations work together in finding out the best solution for dementia patients. Here, both the organisations receive funds from the same sources. For example, the primary care trust comprises acute care service and local care authorities. They obtain funding from the National Health Service (Glasby, 2017). 

Networking-It is a simple partnership model in which, healthcare organisations come together for sharing their practices and discussing the common areas on a regular basis. Parrott (2014) commented that the main purpose of this model is to grasp the available opportunities like, offering specific services to patients or receive funding.  In such model, organisations do not make any pledge to go further without having the consent from two or more organisations. 

Multi-agency working- In this model, the partnership is clearly designed for ensuring success. Here, the participating organisations share information and resources (human and others) for working mutually. For making, this model work, a high level of trust requires being developed between organisations. This model believes that working together helps to achieve more effective outcomes for patients than working individually (Ventola, 2014). 

Referral system- In this model, organisations agree to refer patients and share information with another agency or better treatment. This process helps to save the extra time required for repeating information collection. Here, a written agreement is needed for starting the process or it can be done just using a form.

Consortium- Healthcare organisations agree to work together to request for resources. They work for mutually beneficial aim or as a pressure group. In the consortium, organisations start their work completely in a distinct way or can work with others. The aim is to work collaboratively, as it may facilitate to gain more success (Patch et al. 2013). 

Review current legislations and organisational practices and policies for partnership working in health and social care (2.2)

Health and Social care in the present times have changed a lot, with the increasing demands of different types of services for the welfare of people. Regulations and policies of both the national government and the local authorities have been reformed considerably. Health and social care organisations have merged with different other organisations to form a partnership in order to create a more integrated and effective service in the field of health and social care. Partnership working provides an all round protection to the needy. In this respect, the government has taken some actions and formed some rules and regulations, these are:

Extend help to the local authorities and healthcare organisation, to provide integrated care. The local authorities with the health and social care organisations jointly pioneers programs to find and assess the needs of the people and help them out. Not only this, the government provides funds to the local authorities to run the efforts successfully. 

Giving freedom to choose the services, the service users feel right for them, in order to enable them to decide what is right. Funds are provided to the service users in this respect.

To eradicate the hindrances in the efforts of providing, integrated care to the support users by forming policies and providing financial supports for the organisations.

Coordinating officers are appointed to look after the different requirements of care to the support users and help them to find the appropriate care system for their complex needs.

To provide better and appropriate information regarding the services to the support users by creating databases of their needs and the 

Legislation regarding partnership working in health and social care: Formulating bills and regulation regarding the care standards. In this context, Health and Social Care Act 2012 specifies obligations for the relationship between health care and other social care and supporting organisations to carry out proper services. The Care Act 2014 defines the care standards to be maintained and carried out by the organisations and the local authorities for improved and integrated care services (Gov.uk, 2015).

The Health and social care organisations set policies together with the other supporting organisations, which need to be same as or of higher standards than government, to jointly perform the task of providing care services to people. The policies enable them to coordinate each other without intervening in their assigned jobs. Further, the policies are set in a way so as to contribute to the decision-making process effectively. These policies make them interdependent which gives the functioning of the unit a speed. Moreover, their partnership enables them to share same goals and objectives (Jon Glasby, 2017).

Explain how differences in working practices and policies affect collaborative working (2.3)

With the increasing demand for multi-disciplinary approaches, requiring in health and social care factors, collaborative working was made possible. There are both advantages and disadvantages of collaborative working, which are listed below:

Advantages: There are multifaceted advantages in collaborative working, such as

Specialised staffs concentrate on the special issues in the context of health and social care and therefore training of the inexperienced staffs are carried out.

Best efforts are given by the professionals to the required cases which need their intervention and knowledge.

Sharing of the same goal by the teams, so performance towards improved care services are properly carried out.

The teams are interdependent, thus the unity is maintained towards excellence in performance.

Interdisciplinary learning is also conducted while dealing with different cases of service users.

The service users get the best care under interdisciplinary approaches. Moreover, it is cost effective to the budget of service users (Knowles et al., 2013).

The disadvantages of the collaborative working are:

1. Conflicts within the different disciplines regarding the processes to be implemented by the service users.
2. The difference of opinions among the different professionals, delay the processes of care and support to the service users.
3. Time-consuming processes of consultation and recommendation, cause unrest and disinterest among the service users.
4. The difference of economic, social and professional status among the team members arise ego and ethical problems which adversely affect the service procedures.

After all these debates of advantages and disadvantages of collaborative working, the positive effects outshine all the adversities. Collaborative approaches in the service sector of health and social care have brought revolutionary changes in the cases of child care, old age care and mental disabilities care (Edwards et al., 2010).

Evaluate possible outcomes of partnership working for users of services, professionals and organisations (3.1)

The expected outcomes of partnership working for users of services, professionals and organisations are diverse, depending on the seriousness of the state of the service users. The possible outcomes of partnership working for service users include three different aspects, these are, quality of life expected by the service users, the change/improvements in the service users, and the processes applied to bring the change. 

The above table describes how the possible outcomes of partnership working affect the life of the users and what improvement can be brought in by the processes applied in service to the service users.

While the possible outcomes of partnership working for the professionals and the organisation are quite interdependent. As shown in the above table how the service provided by the professionals and staffs bring massive change in the lives of the service users. The possible outcomes in the case of professionals and organisations are:

 Gaining experiences from different cases of service users.

Achieving knowledge about the other disciplines, for professionals.

New career options are being opened up by the success of the collaborative approaches for the professionals.

 Capabilities of the professionals in handling critical cases are increased.

Personal satisfaction of the professionals, staffs and organisation authorities through successful completion of services to the needy people.

Organisations achieve service user’s satisfaction.

The credibility of the organisation increases.

Popularity increases for both the professionals and the organisations.

Monetary gains for both the professionals and the organisations (Patel et al., 2012).

Analyse the potential barriers to partnership working in health and social care services (3.2)

For treating any patient with dementia, it is important to create an interprofessional and interpersonal relationship. However, it is not easy to work in a group that can secure the optimum results. There can be different potential barrier among the service users that can result in the ineffective results. The main barrier to the creation of effective partnership is the lack of understanding the role and responsibility of the care workers (Gary, 2015). Unclear knowledge regarding the roles and responsibility can generate an ineffective relationship among the care workers. Along with that, the negative attitude among the care workers can create a problem in creating the partnerships. 

Some care workers can be involved in the competition with each other that can create an insufficient flow of knowledge. This insufficient flow of information can generate an ineffective treatment for the patient having dementia. Any health and social care organisation may have diversified employees from a different geographical area that have different types of attitude and values. Therefore, this distinct level of attitude and value can create a barrier that can generate an ineffective relationship. As stated by Rummery and Coleman (2013), care workers that are working in a group may have a distinct level of priorities that can causes problem by creating ineffective partnerships.

Conclusion: 

Recommendation:

Devise strategies to improve outcome for partnership working in health and social care services (3.3)

Communication-Establishing a standard communication process can be considered as one of the most effective methods of developing the relationship between the service users and service providers in HSC sector. Burwell (2015) stated that the communication method may consist of synchronised service user registration process with their personal health issue related records. The family members or the caregivers of the dementia patients can register them the health issues of the patient through this system. This system will be helpful for all the partnering agencies to acquire and update information regarding patients so that this can be used in future treatment. Internal communication among the service providers is another important factor for avoiding misunderstanding, confusion and recurrence of actions. 

Information sharing- According to Glasby and Dickinson (2014), information sharing is the most important thing for working effectively in partnership. Sharing information related to the medical condition, treatment-procedure, health status, plans and procedure must be shared among all the care workers involved in taking care of the patient and the partnering agencies. This helps in maintaining and fostering a transparent and trustworthy relationship between all the partners. 

Dealing with conflict- Dealing with conflict among the service providers is important for ensuring effective services are provided to the people with dementia. Conflicts may hamper the outcome of the service and reduce the health condition of the patients. Therefore, the agency must carry out negotiation with the care workers for encouraging them to respect each others’ work and try to learn from each other (Dickinson and Glasby, 2010). 

Empowerment- As per the viewpoint of Marmot et al. (2010), empowering service providers to take decisions creates a sense of responsibility in them that improves their performance quality. Not only service providers, but empowering service users and other partnering agencies are also important so that they can feel comfortable and independent while working in partnership with the agency. Thus, the objective of obtaining better health outcome of the patients can be achieved.