What Is Collaborative Working

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This essay will look at how collaborative working in health and social care can impact service user experience. Collaborative working is defined as multiple organisations working towards a common goal, in this cases the goal being to improve service user experience in the Cambridge Business English Dictionary, 2011. Lack of collaborative working or ineffective team work can have a detrimental effect on service user experience. Lord Laming (2003) suggested that in the case of Victoria Climbie if there had been better collaboration between different professions then results may have been different. The focus of the assignment will be how collaborative working can help provide more holistic care, how a greater understanding of professional roles…show more content…
Theofilou, 2010 found that inefficiencies in communication in a team setting can have adverse effects on service users and professionals. Not only is there an increased stress levels in professionals but it can lead to misunderstanding and medical errors. One cause of communication inefficiency is the lack of knowledge. Collaborative working works best when members in a team understand their own scope of practice alongside those of other team members (MacDonald et al., 2010). It is important that everyone’s knowledge is regarded at the same level and with the same amount of respect as discussed by (Milburn & Colyer, 2008). The movement towards more collaborative working in the National Health Service (NHS) works on the basis that professionals will work together with the same outcome of improved service user outcomes (Acton, 2013). This leads to a fluid movement along the service user care pathway, as the different professions work together in unison to reach the same…show more content…
The ability for members of an inter-professional team to work together all lies on their ability to communicate. Teams that are effective at communicating are linked with positive service user outcomes (Rice et al., 2010). An effective model of communication allows for team members to openly share their opinions and challenge one another in a means of improving service user care. This works well when there is mutual respect within a team, regardless of any professional stereotypes. (Leape et al., 2012) found that smoothly functioning teams are linked to safe practice because if a team is not functioning smoothly then team efforts fail and service users suffer as a
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