Working in Partnership - Essay Example

? Working in Partnership Working in Partnership The purpose and objectives in working in partnership is basically a requirement of legislation and policy formulation in health and social issues. The aims of studying the concepts of partnership in health and social care are to give learners a chance to explore different levels of partnership. It strengthens the users to know the implementation of working in partnership vis a vis other service users, organizations and professionals. Getting access to partnership policy from a wide array of organizations would be useful in health and social care. Within health and social frameworks, there is a need for both the health and social care agents to corporate effectively in partnership, and also in collaboration. The Department of Health policies on how to tackle health inequalities require the service agents to work in partnership in order to enable them address the pertinent issues in pertinent issues in health care. The concept of partnership in the health and social care is very imperative. This is important because it addresses the vital issues like poor housing, employment, education and poverty. The partnership concept in social and health care must be policy driven, that is, it must be aimed at achieving the best among the users. The concept of strengthening partnership started in Britain in early 1980s. The partnership concept and the professionals served by the system have seen increased emphasis on receivers of the services. Research in health and social care partnerships have found out that they are heavily centered on social process issues, and have given little attention to results in both the organization and the user. However, most government publications view partnership as working on the issues dealing with individual persons and not the functional basis. Partnership must be able to deliver health and social care aspects. The concept of partnership in health and social care platform is becoming successful in most countries, notably the UK and the US. Nevertheless, there have been a lot of pitfalls in the partnerships in the health and social care systems. The case of Springfield Mental Health Trust shows how sometimes, partnerships fail. It is a well-known organization with developed forensic services. The organization has wider financial sources, centrally located in the city and highly developed specialized facilities. Shelbyville Mental Trust lacks forensic expertise but provides a wider range of community based services and covers a smaller area .It is also situated away from urban areas and has received negative reports from health care personnel concerning the quality of services they offer. Partnership in health care set up should never be an end to itself. The managers should be clear about the required outcomes. To overcome this problem, the various front line services should try to pose series of challenges - that is, before and after the desire to go for a partnership. The partnership should evaluate itself by considering its outcomes (what it needs to achieve for local people), the context and the process. This will enable the partnership not to become an end to itself. It will also give a clear and concise sense of what the future success will appear and ensure that there exists a mutual understanding of problems that have to be tackled. It should also provide success criteria of evaluating various options and designs. Reference to partnerships in business is vital enough, given the latest developments in health and social care. Barriers normally exist in partnership, for example, in English health care systems, there is a barrier, which exist inform of asymmetrical information. Another barrier to the health care system is the bureaucracy or the complexity of relationships resulting from interplay, among those involved in partnership. Collaboration in partnership aids at dealing with the negative outcomes of partnerships. When partnership involves the use of collaboration, there will be greater effective use of staff, refining health care system by bridging the gap between uneven services provision, sharing of ideas, sharing of organizational structures and sustained energy. In collaboration existing between the service users and service provides, the earlier (the service users) can become reluctant to take equal share in partnership. Health care and social care partnership form’s today’s government approach to public policy. However, partnerships have not been able to empirically display that they can produce good results for service users. It is a problem because if they do not deliver, they may end up losing legitimacy in their operations. Therefore, there must be a way in which these partnerships are evaluated. When partnerships fail to apply the above approach from the beginning, they are posed with a risk of implementing an assessment without capturing what the success would look like. Against this case study, it can be concluded that the attitudes to social and health partnership are more fruitful than when there is no partnership among the service providers. Both the health care and social care services have been strengthened to enable the consumers to be more involved and to contribute more in the designation and provision of service. The reason behind this reformulation in health and social care partnership is that both the health and social problems have evolved to be more dynamic, complex and the earlier models of welfare are no longer useful. Therefore, it is in this limelight that the professionals have decided to put service users at the forefront of health matters, criminal justice and social care. Though the service user problems are complex, they are more important in the designation of services other than central distinctions between community nurses and social workers, or between criminal justice professionals and social workers. From the above explanation, the concept is that a service user having a certain health problem may be in need of a specific care concern that was recently provided by social services. Therefore, there is a need for the healthy and social care to work together in unison to meet the users’ needs. Just as people’s needs and desires change overtime, partnerships therefore, should conform to changes in these needs and provide the solutions as needed. One of the great difficulties in exhibiting the relationship between partnership and service user comes from the fact that most outcomes are long term in nature. Partnership Assessment Tools are however, available in order to assist partnerships through assessment of methods of effective partnership working. The tools however, do not provide a detailed framework but they just point out their usefulness as development aids. When evaluating the performance of partnerships, it is neither satisfactory to think of process, paying little attention to the outcomes nor is it satisfactory to study the end results without any consideration of how the partnership works. The partnership philosophies and the influence they have on expert and medical model of service users needs to be critically analyzed. The advent of the partnership issue comes in handy when the governments try to build and maintain up-to-date dependable health services where the medical users (patients) have a quicker access to quality medical services, which are specifically based on need. There must be no bureaucracy but rather efforts have to be applied in order to come up with an integrated health care, which are the core issues in the philosophy of partnership. Health and social care must work closely to those in dire need of the services. Partnership must become a reality by doing away with the artificial barriers and unnecessary complications in the current systems of health and social care, and coming up with new and workable incentives in order to achieve efficient progress monitoring. There are varied legislations on health and social care, which have been put in to place in order to streamline the objectives of partnership in health and social care. The first one, which is very important, is the Health and Safety Act of 1974. This legislation aims at enhancing the safety of researchers, patients and medical staff. The health and social care policies must be followed as dictated by their place of work and their occupation. The legislation builds a create confidence in partnership between the medical staff and patients as patients are sure of being taken care of in case of any medical problem. Legislations in health and social care ensure that patients are furnished with relevant information concerning their rights prior to their admission to a health facility and after the admission as dictated by the patient’s conditions. The information should include clear explanation of what the rights entail and the way they should be exercised. It must be very clear therefore, that the levels of understanding of some technical terms must be taken into consideration. Countries should therefore, develop posters, tapes or pamphlets that are easily understood, and can show clearly the rights of citizens. The Community Care Act of 1990 is a legislation, which deals with health and social care in UK. The legislation stipulates how the NHS should analyze and furnish patients with their needs, health requirements and circumstances. The act stipulates that there must be a strengthened partnership between the local authorities and people in the provision of health care and social support. The reason is to make sure that people requiring community care get the service they have a right to. The patients will therefore, have their needs assessed and the outcomes are determined as to whether the service should be provide or not. Under a partnership, the Community Care Act of 1990 and the National Health Services divided the duties of local authorities and health authorities by modifying their internal organizational structures. This meant that the local authorities will assess the needs of the population and buy services from the health authorities (DiMaggio, 1991). Therefore, health authorities became trusts. Community health and social care ensures that people requiring long term care can now be able to continue living in their homes, given adequate support from health and social care partnership (Jupp, 2000). This act aimed at giving health care a high priority task, to make relevant assessment of case management and enhance independent sector development. The NHS and the Community Care Act of 1990 imposes an obligation on local authorities to do evaluation of the need of various care services. Due to improved partnership, the Act has been able to assist a large number of people. The Mental Care Act of 1983, Section 117 needs the local authorities in partnership with the health authorities to take part in the provision of the post care services to patients who are leaving the hospital after admission. The partnership in the health and social care ensures that the assessment should be undertaken immediately after the discharge, in order to clearly identify how they will be fulfilled. Under the regulation, there should be formulation of a care plan which ensures that patients are well taken care of, reviewing of the care plan regularly and continuous evaluation of people’s social care and health care needs. Patients should, in partnership with clinicians, emphasize efficient delivery of the health care and social care. Partnership in health and social care values the relationship between the medical staff and the patient in that the patient needs to be taken as a partner as far as therapeutic relationship is concerned. In addition, partnership stresses the need for NHS and the local authorities to work in partnership, in order to enhance success. Moreover, the collaboration between health care providers and the community have been strengthened in order to aid health and social care reforms through action (Department of Health, 2000). Partnerships in health and social care should have various distinct attributes, which will ensure that it effectively achieves its plans. These attributes are-genuine relationship, reciprocity, respect for others, support and advocacy, choice and equity, corporation, open and honest communication, respect and participatory involvement. To make partnerships effective, a process of isomorphism should take place within the organizations. Organizations should adopt some innovations, which are not only effective but have been tried and seen to have worked for some of the key partnership institutions. Just as partnership has been an important tool for offering public services, this may assist in explaining the reason why some partnerships have opted the idea of restructuring their way of offering the services of the community (Banks, 2002). Most local authorities have pushed social care and health care organizations locally in order to deliver partnerships. Besides, central governments have tried to remove a number of legal and structural difficulties, which can be face in partnership environment. These include legislations aimed at improving pooled funding arrangements, streamlining inspection regimes and revising health care boundaries. The local authorities should be clear on what kinds of partnership can produce what types of outcomes. They should also be clear on which types of services user groups want and when. Moreover, they need to understand the support mechanisms and procedures, which need to be in place in order to enhance effectiveness of the process. Void of this information, health care and social care partnerships will always repeat the mistakes or failures and they are most likely to lose direction (Pawson, 1997). Partnerships however, have more good than bad. If implemented properly, it would act as a solution to various problems. Therefore, partnerships are certain to grow and achieve higher levels of success. Despite many barriers described above, partnerships have created positive reforms in health and social care systems. For partnership to work effectively, client issues have to be addressed properly and the old system of professional education reviewed. Part of the problems affecting partnership is that they might be using new ways of carrying out tasks and still operating under the old context. Professional regulations have to match up the growing need for partnerships (Devine, 1998). Health care and social care partnership have improved service delivery. However, the service improvement should be directed at the users. Government needs to offer advice on the types of development opportunities so that partnerships can grow and expand. References Banks, P. (2002). Partnerships under Pressure: A Commentary on Progress in Department of Health . London: Sage Publishers Department of Health (2000). The NHS plan: a plan for investment, and a plan for reform. London: Department of Health. Devine, M. and Hirsh, W. (1998). Mergers and acquisitions: getting the people bit. London: Sage Publishers DiMaggio, P.J. and Powell, W.W. (1991). The iron cage revisited: institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. London: The Stationery Office. Jupp, B. (2000). Working together: Creating a Better Environment for Cross-sector Partnerships, London: DEMOS Pawson, R. and Tilley, N. (1997). Realistic evaluation, London: Sage Publishers . Read More