The experience of inter professional collaboration in an area of practice

A 2,000 word essay, considering the experience of inter-professional collaboration in your area of clinical practice

For the purpose of this essay, the importance of interprofessional working (IPW) in effective patient care will be discussed, along with the challenges and constraints. A patient case study will be used for example purposes; all names and places will be changed in line with Nursing Midwifery Council (NMC, 2008) guidelines. According to The British Medical Association (2005), interprofessional collaboration is loosely defined as professionals working together to improve the quality of patient care. The insurgence into creating a well-oiled professional work force is well documented throughout healthcare over the last decade. The Department of Health (DH, 2007) argues that the areas of interprofessional, interagency, inter-sectoral education and practice, need vast progression to improve interprofessional relations. IPW has been supported in a global sense by the World Health Organisation (WHO, 2010). They have stated that the planning, policy making and relations between interprofessional teams need to integrate to improve patient care. A collaborative practice team is key to moving healthcare systems ‘from fragmentation to a position of strength’ (WHO, 2010). The DH (2007) issued a supplement; ‘Creating an Interprofessional Workforce’. This document reconfirms the need to have an integrated healthcare system with details of initiatives that have and will be implemented to support this. These strategies encompass involving the patient/family/carers/ in decisions and improving both leadership and education to improve patient care, satisfaction, safety and the health service in general. Due to these reasons, interprofessional collaboration is important in the effectiveness of patient care (Hoffman et al, 2007). The level of patient care can be difficult to measure due to the methods being unquantifiable and difficult to assess (Martin,

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