Unit 1: Communicating in Health and Social Care Organisations Assignment Sample

Introduction - Communication in Health and Social Care Organizations: Theories, Practices and Technology

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This report discusses the aspects of communication in the health and social care organization. In this it analyses the different theories that can be adopted by the organization that helps to communicate within the organization. Different skills of communication can be evaluated with different methods. It also emphasis on the different strategies that can be used by the workers to ensures the needs of communication. It also helps to understand the different factors that influence the process of communication in the organization. Legislation also plays crucial roles that help the employers to understand the practices and codes in organization. It also access the role of ICT in health and social care with their advantages.

LO1 Be able to explore how communication skills are used in health and social care

Introduction

The communication skills in areas where supporting and helping people during emergency is serve a crucial role. They are essential to exchange information, monitor the health of people, and inspect the overall health improvement of patient’s condition. In this section, we will see how different theories of communication is applied in health and care contexts and analyse those strategies.

1.1 Apply relevant theories of communication to health and social care contexts

The theoretical models serve a useful purpose in planning, application, and evaluating the outcomes. Many theories are appropriate in understanding the behaviour & decision-making. In the field of health and social care, social psychology models are often brought into use. There are numerous communication theories that can be applied in the health and social care sector, such as cognitive-theories, psychoanalytic theory, and step-stage theories.

Cognitive Theories: these give a ‘continuum accounts of behaviour’. Cognitive theories comprise the ‘Theory of Planned Behaviour’ and the ‘Health Belief Model’

• Theory of Planned Behaviour:

(Figure 1. The Theory of Planned Behaviour)

(Source: Value Based Management, 2015)

• Health Belief Model

(Figure 2. The Health Belief Model)

(Source: Research gate, 2014)

The Health Belief Model (HBM) is based on some psychological model and is often used by the psychologist in order to explain or predict the behaviours. In this, a focus is being put on the beliefs and attitudes of an individual. In current times, the HBM is used to explore a variety of short and long-term health behaviour. The HBM method does not consider person’s beliefs, attitudes, or other factors that could actually affect a person’s behaviour (Levinson, 2016).

Psychoanalytic Theory: This is one of the major personality theories based upon the idea that a person get motivated more by the forces that are guided by the rational and conscious thoughts. According to Sigmund Freud, the human behaviour is characterised by three components i.e., Id, Ego, and Super Ego as shown in figure 3.

(Figure 3. Three components of mind in psychoanalytic theory)

(Source: Business Jargons, 2016)

https://businessjargons.com/psychoanalytic-theory.html

Step-stage Theory:

This theory was given by Jean Piaget and talks about the cognitive development. It says that a child goes through four stages of cognitive development. In addition, this theory focuses on understanding the ways by which a child gain knowledge and their nature of intelligence. Piaget’s stages include:-

• Sensorimotor stage: 0 to 2 years
• Preoperational stage: between 2 to 7 years
• Concrete operational stage: between 7 to 11 years
• Formal operational stage: from 12 and above

1.2. Use communication skills in a health and social care context

Every organisation irrespective of the domain it is dealing in or the scale has its goal and communication processes and tools help in achieving them. The health and social care organisations is majorly supported by the process of communication because if the representatives do not understand the problem of their patients, then how they would diagnose them. InCavell Residential Care Home, many techniques are been brought into use to make sure that the proper communication process is flourishing within the organisation. Looking into the importance of service users and professional staff, latest technologies should be introduced and employees should be trained to make use of them to carry out an effective communication with their client. Modern equipment and tools are being developed so to improvise the monitoring processes of social care centres. According to the norms dictated by the National Health Agency, the training of staff is mandatory for the effectiveness of a good communication process (Epstein, 2016). In many research work, it has been found that practicing a communication effectively can help in raising the overall performance of the organisation and cast a huge positive impact over the growth of the health and social care centre. Health and social care sector is characterized by employees and clients belonging to different race or class or gender, or ethnicity. In other words, communication is the simplest way to understand the wellbeing of patients and to tell how he/she is coping with the illness. A proper communication can help in building a healthy relationships with the patients and other clients and if this is not the case, then misunderstanding takes place that could affect the image of the organisation.Thus, effective communication act as a pivot to health and social care sectors around which the activities revolve.

1.3 Review methods of dealing with inappropriate interpersonal communication between individuals in health and social care settings.

Effective communication is been stressed because it allow the service users to influence the decisions made by the health and social care centres. Users can easily figure out what has been proposed for them. According to Cavell Residential Care Home,the health and social care sectors, numerous barriers to communication may arise while understanding the patient’s condition. These are, misinterpretation, linguistic barriers, lack of trust, breach of confidentiality, etc. The lack of knowledge about the particular language is the main reason behind inability to explain the health issues to the representatives. Apart from this, patients may use different signs to indicate his/her illness, but signs can be interpreted in different ways (Evans, 2016). So in order to cope with all such situations, the representatives of health and social care centres must be able to grasp the knowledge of different verbal and non-verbal ways of communications. A proper care should be given while writing a prescription of the patient in order to avoid problems related to the schedule of a particular medication and its dosage. The professional dealing in this area should take care of the confidentiality of the information of their patients and should not disclose it without their consent. If in any case, the data confidentiality is breached, then this will lead to communication failure and breaking of trust. On the other hand, the representatives must not behave inappropriately with their clients, misuse their powers, and should support their co-workers in order to form a grounded relationship within the organisation. This would help them in dealing with the miscommunication.

1.4 Analyse the use of strategies to support users of health and social care services with specific communication needs.

As per the head of Cavell Residential Care Home, to formulate some beneficial strategies for health and social care centres, a large amount of information is needed. It has been found in many cases that behind some ineffective diagnoses, the main reason was ineffective communication or misinterpretation of information by the health representatives. Organisation indulged in health and social care sectors must understand that by using proper techniques and selecting the good communication skills, one can treat his/her patients with respect, ask relevant and easily understandable questions, build a healthy relationship and bring the trust among themselves, thereby helping them in the best way possible. In addition to this, having some knowledge of technology and other communication tools can help them in their domain of Excellency and proficiency. The strategy is to motivate the whole society or community to make use of curative or some preventions for a better wellbeing. The Health care representatives should make use of the strategies of assessing the need of their patients and understanding their different signs as linguistic barriers may arise in some cases. By analysing the users’ needs, an organisation dealing in health and care sector will be able to satisfy its patients.

Conclusion

In this report, the overall overview of the communication process in health and social care sectors have been discussed thoroughly. Various theories of communication and their applicability in the health and social care sectors is analysed briefly and different methods of dealing with miscommunication situations were reviewed in the course of this report. Before concluding, an analysis of various strategies in order to support the health and social care services had been done along with their specific communication needs.

LO2 Understand how various factors influence the communication process in health and social care.

Introduction

Communication process is affected by various factors and each of them has its own implications on the health and social care organisations. In this report, the cultural factors and values and its relationship with the communication process is analysed. On moving further, the role of policies and organisational system is assessed with respect to the process of communication. Later on, the ways of improving the communication process in relation to the health and social care centres have been discussed.

2.1 Explain how the communication process is influenced by values and cultural factors

One can link the communication with the values and culture of people or organization. Since the professionals working in Cavell Residential Care Home have to deal with individuals from different religion and ethnicity, communication serves as an instrument to deal with such cases. Ineffectiveness in understanding the aforementioned factors can lead to miscommunication and affect the reputation of the organisation. For example, in the United Kingdom, English is the national language but not everyone is native English speaker. Therefore, expressing ideas or exchanging the information becomes quite perplexing for most of non-English speaker. Talking about the service users, many a times it is quite complicated for them to express their needs and problems they are facing. This makes them less engaged with their healthcare professionals. To discard such problems, the Department of Health has guided the health and social care centres to provide the leaflets to the service users in different languages. In case, an organisation is not doing so, it will have a drastic impact on the growth of the organisation. The evil side of the values and cultural factors is that it leads to discrimination within the organisation and this should be avoided. Every employee working in the health and social care sector must respect the working pattern and the thought process of others as a part of values and cultures. This not only establishes a genuine communication process but it also fosters the working environment. If values and cultures are not handled with utmost care, then this may lead to disrespect, hatred, and hesitation (Pirnejad, 2014). Thus, the values and cultural aspect of an individual cast a severe impact on the communication process.

2.2. Explain how legislation, charters and codes of practice impact on the communication process in health and social care.

Every organisation has to comply with certain legislation and guidelines set by the government. Government of the UK are continuously telling the health sector organisation to improve their communication process and organisations are working to improvise it. The benefits of an effective communication process are many: it gives them a confidence to work efficiently and integrate every stakeholder in the progress of the organisation. Talking about the Data Protection Act 1998, this legislation entitled the organisations to build a smooth communication between the social care organisation and the service users. This provide them the right of protected data i.e., their data is to be protected in a very safe conditions and they can communicate their health information to their healthcare representative. Moreover, it was earlier discussed that discrimination hinders the communication process. Therefore, to curb this issue, the Equality Act 2010 protects people from getting discriminated based on age, beliefs, sex, sexuality, gender, ethnicity, education, and social class. Apart from this, According to United Nation Report, the NHA mandates every social care or health centre to store a health record of every patient (WHO report). The UK legislation obligates the organisation to formulate a company HR policy to hire health service providers and other staff with required communication and language skills so as to make some grounded relationships and to maintain the warmth of it (Sorensen, 2012). This would ultimately improve the country health service quality and standards.

2.3. Analyse the effectiveness of organizational system and policies in promoting good practices.

No doubt that policies and organisational system play a crucial role in setting up an effective communication system. They help in maintaining a healthy relationship with clients, values and behaviour. It reflects the friendly environment within the organisation. The effectiveness and productivity of an organisation depends upon its policies and to maintain a healthy working environment firms keep on making changes in their current policies and organisational system. Policies make employees responsible and ethical. It makes them disciplined and focused towards their work and they understand the consequences of not following them. This responsible attitude is quintessential in improvising the communication process within an organisation. The important part of every effective communication process is getting the feedback from the customers about the service quality. Feedbacks can be positive and negative, and organisation must consider both of them so as to make the apt changes in their procedures to deliver the best to their customers. Many research works have shown that policies help in setting up an effective communication system at the work premises which further assists in employee development. The policies against discrimination, for health and safety, or equality promotes a smooth communication process at work place. Policies for appreciation and reward can actually trigger the employee to improve the level of communication (Marmot, 2014). There are many ways of improving the communication process in health care centre, such as relationship building sessions, implementing legal policies, employee training, etc. Formulating and implementing the legal policies is one of the most powerful tool that can be used in improving the communication process. The idea is to induce the sense of responsibility in the work force. In addition to this, relationship building sessions are mentioned because the immensely help in health and social care settings. These sessions can be organised by the organisation for its employees regularly to make the workplace friendly.

2.4. Suggest ways of improving the communication process in a health and social care setting.

Everyone who is connected to health and social care organisation must understand the importance of a functioning process of communication as it is the most crucial requirement of their profession.Out of many ways, one such way is to bring trust in the relationship. This could be done by the provision of data security. By securing the information of the clients, one can discard the misunderstanding and complications in the communication process. In many research, it has been found that by implementing the sustainable and dynamic rules in the documentation of the reports, one can improve the communication process. Making use of certain technological aids or other communication tools can serve the purpose of establishing the effective mode of communication in the organisation (Ventola, 2014). In health care, there are persons with certain disabilities. So providing them an opportunities to exchange their thoughts can majorly improve the organisation goodwill in the market. The barriers to communication can be many but if an organisation understands, easily identify them and work to rectify them, then it can ultimately forms a healthy communication process. Service providers must understand the processes and activities that are essential for the complicated process of communication and should train their employee in accordance with them. Having a helping desk for the customers in the health care centres can also be an effective move in the direction of establishing the communication process in the organisation. These desk can provide information, listen to the problem the patients are facing (Viner, et.al, 2012). Therefore, one must provide a training program that helps them to increase their language and communication skills, and helps them to cater the different language users.

Conclusion

In this report, the factors that affect the communication process have been discussed briefly. Apart from this, the role of organisational system and policies has been elucidated. Before ending this report, a brief about the ways of improving the communication process within a health and social care centre are mentioned.

LO3 - Be able to explore the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in health and social care.

Introduction

In this task, it discusses the different types of software packages that can be used by the Cavell Residential Care Home in London. It also evaluates its advantages in relation to the workers, users and organizations. It also accesses the legal impact on the use of ICT on H& SC.

3.1 Access and use standard ICT software packages to support work in health and social care.

Software is the programming instructions and applications that enables to use the computer and helps the organizations. There are different software packages that can be used by the Cavell Residential care home to communicate with each other at the time of emergency. Different software packages are word-processing, database, internet, email etc.(Tondeur, et. al., 2017).

If the organisation can use the software they can improves their standards of services that can be provided to the patients. By using the standards they can easily understand the routine and schedule of the patients and proper treatments can be provided to the patients. Different software is discussed below:

Word-processing - This software can be used to manipulate the document such as report, resume and it also provides the different tools for copying, deleting. It also saves and edits the documents. The organization can easily the move, paste and deleted the data with the help of word processing. For example, if Cavell Residential care home wants to make the table and charts of the patients to know the data they can use this software.

Database - It is the electronic arsenal of data that can be build by the users to review the information of patients in coherent and rapid manner. This software package is designed to create the system of databases that can be changed, managed and helps to extract the information in the organization.

Internet - It is also considered as the package as it provides the wide variety of information and communication facilities through the different standards and protocols. For example, if the organization uses the facilities of internet then they can easily extract the data and information of patients and also search the services and techniques that can be provided to the patients in case of emergency.

Email - It is the software that can be used by the doctors to know the information of patients. It takes less time and through this large number of organization gets connected.

3.2 Analyse the benefits of using ICT software packages to support work in health and social care for users of services, care workers and care organizations.

In today’s era the ICT software can be used by the numbers of individuals, service users and organizations that helps them to review and monitor the functions of organization. The software of ICT helps to increase the efficiency and speed in providing the care by the health care providers and it also allows the personalization and communication of the information. The ICT helps the doctors to analyse and access the reports of patients with the help of internet. It also allows monitoring the different test such as breathing, sugar test, pulsing rate that leads to provide the more time and concentration on the patients.

There is different software such as Electronic Health Record that provides the history of patients and that allows the doctors to reduce the errors by analysing the data of the patients. Services users can receive the advantages by using the different electronic devices that monitors the level of blood. ICT helps to deliver the information and data through the communication service and also shares the information from one organization to other. The users who avails the facilities of ICT they can easily take the data and methods of solving the problem of diseases of patients. The workers can easily understand the methods and process of the organization so that they can leads to goal and provides the better services to the doctors and patients. Organization by using the ICT they can access the data easily and helps the patients in ascertaining their diseases with different functions and also provides them effective remedy(Oh, et. al., 2018).

If the services provider uses the ICT there will be less chance of accidents in relation to the patients. They can reallocate the expenses on health as well as social care that will be cost and time effective. It also encourages the safety environment for the patients. If organizations use the ICT there will be transformation of better quality products to their patients as they analyses the services with their positive and negative aspects(Bánszki, et. al., 2018).

3.3 Analyse how legal considerations in the use of ICT impact on health and social care.

Legal consideration of Health and social care will provide the security to the workers, staff and organizations. It is helpful to collect the data and that can be secured and remains in the confidential position. There are different legislations that help the organization in framing the policies and plans. These are:

Health and Safety Act, 1974 - It provides the duties on employers. They manager and employer are responsible for the health and safety of workers in the organization that ensures the safety environment in the hospital. While using the ICT applications and software the workers have faced the different problems such as eye problem that leads to the eye pain and strain due to continuous work. It is the responsibility of employer to provide them facilities and safety to employees(Spiezia, 2018).

Display screen Equipment Regulation 1992 - This regulation aims to protect the health of the worker through the computerized monitor systems. In this the executive is responsible to protect the workers from the health risks to those workers who perform the task with display screen equipment (DSE) such as PC’s, laptops. The employers should reduce the risks and provides the proper training to their workers so that they can perform better in the organization.

Data protection Act 1998 - This ensures that the information placed in the computer that can be protected through the use of passwords and encryptions to allow the confidentiality. As there is different software through which information can be leaked or hacked and that affects the health and social care(Gilligan, et. al., 2018).

Conclusion

From the above task, it can be determined that ICT plays a significant role in the Health and social care. It provides the applications and software to the organizations so that they can perform better in organization.

Conclusion

From the above report, it can be concluded that communication is the important aspects in the organization. It can be analyses’ that all the employees should be experienced and skilled so that they can easily use and apply the different theories to improve the skills of communication. It also adopted different strategies that support the health and social care with their needs. It also establish the role of systems and policies that leads to the improving the process of communication. It also understands the role of ICT that helps to keep the data secure and protected. With the help of ICT the process of communication will be easy and safe that provides the update technology to the employees. It also provides the better procedures and plans for the organization.

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