Interproffesional Team Working

1293 Words6 Pages
This essay will aim to discuss the impact of communication on inter-professional team working in the provision of effective healthcare. How did interproffesional-team working come about? Why do we need it? The NHS DH 2000 recognised that the health system needed to be changed in order to keep up with our modern society. Its reform policies focus around the fact that healthcare needs to patient centred. Indeed it could be suggested that inter-professional-team working has been developed as it is the key way in which to focus on the patients needs **** Firstly a definition will be offered for Inter-professional team working. It is apparent that Inter-professional team working is where professionals from different disciplines converge in order to provide the best services possible and improve client/service user care. Zwarenstein et al (2002 in Higgs et al 2004). It is also necessary to draw the distinction between Inter-professional team working and multi professional team working and to note the ambiguity in the definitions. According to Siegler & Whitney, 1994 a multi-professional team could include several professionals who are working with the same client/patient however they are working independently or alongside each other. Hence for example an Occupational Therapist, Care Manager and Speech Therapist could be members of a multi professional team but this does not mean they would necessarily communicate with each other on a regular basis. They will perform their tasks simultaneously with the client and they would not need input from one another. In comparison an inter-professional team will actually be interacting with each other on a regular basis and work towards a common goal for their client/patient (D. D’Amour et al 2005). In this relationship there would have to be a high level of communication between the professionals. Each
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