Inter Professional Working

There will always be a need for the professionals to work together if they are to provide the high-est standard of care for the patients. Inter professional working encourages the staff members to understand the aim of other professionals. This is an essential part of education and practice for the professionals. Inter professional Working in Health and Social Care discusses the main skills and qualities required for inter professional working. This provides an overview of the roles and per-spectives of the different health professionals.
The Laming Report (2003) highlighted how inadequate information sharing had to be improved to stop tragedies for example the death of Victoria Climbie. Research by Robinson and Cottrell (2005) shows that
certain professions were excluded from sharing information or being unable to access information because of different computer database systems. The Social workers found having very limited access to information this was seen as an obstruction to their way of working in a holis-tic way with the individuals Frost et al (2005). Some of the social workers were part of the integrat-ed services, as part of an inter professional team, which leads to the delivery of a non-worthy ser-vice (Richardson and Asthana 2005).
Payne (2000) suggests that in inter professional teams issues will occur due to the different profes-sionals carrying out different tasks, they will all have different roles.
This needs to be clarified be-tween themselves to maintain professionalism. Copperman and Newton (2005) published findings from interviews to record the views of social workers and inter professional working. Individuals who were interviewed had seen their role as been a facilitator across different sectors and felt in different ways that their unique skills were not valued and being ignored by the inter professional teams. Richardson and Asthana (2005) published findings that collaborative practice can improve the services in the health and social care by stopping service users from missing out on the differ-ent services available and reducing role overlap. The research findings from Newton and Copper-man (2005) show that by working inter professionally, the services can be taken into account ser-vice users views to meet the individual needs. It is essential for the health care support to be ‘inte-grated’ and based on the patient it must be person-centred, coordinated, and targeting to the needs and preferences of the service user , their carer and family. This means moving away from the episodic care to a more holistic approach to health care and individual support needs, this puts the needs and experiences of the people at the centre of how services are
organised.
Where local areas have succeeded in integrating health, care and support services, too often it has been despite of the national system rather than because of it. This is why NHS England has joined a range of national partner organisations to tackle national barriers and enable and encourage locally-led, integrated services to flourish. Inter professional and inter-agency collaboration is an effective way to drive up the standard of care. Policy and legislation now place users and carers at the centre of services. As consumers, they expect the professionals they come into contact with to work together. According to Tope and Thomas (2007), analysis of policies from as early as 1920 in health and social care have recommended professional collaboration, improved communication and teamwork to improve outcomes for service users. There have been similar recommendations in government policy since this time (Tope and Thomas, 2007). High profile investigations since 2000 highlight the deficiencies in Inter professional working across the health and social care. Inadequate communication between professionals in cases of the Bristol Royal Infirmary Inquiry (HM Government 2001), the Victoria Climbie Inquiry Report (Laming, 2003), and The Protection of Children in England: A Progress Report (Laming, 2009) have caused nationwide concern beyond the