Importance of Communication in Healthcare

Introduction

Providing and delivering care to the person in need is the key professional requirements for healthcare service. The health workers, supporting staffs, health managers, carers and administrative bodies must have good interactive power for successful communication in personal level. In order to achieve best professional quality by keeping accounts of the problem considering the social, economic, ethnic and as well as humanity, the involved person needs proper training about communication skills like, listening, empathetic feedback, good questioning, role playing, ability to solve problem quickly and other organizational and interpersonal skills. In this essay we shall discuss on the importance of one-to-one communication skills for effective interactions with the client to get optimum outcome with respect to a chosen case study scenario (case study 3).

Analysis of the case study

In the given scenario Morris and Jenny are aged couple living in UK, Jenny has severe arthritis and Morris is the carer of Jenny. Amina supports them by occasional visit from the organization Age Concern. Upon seeing the deterioration of Jenny and the trouble of her husband in meeting daily needs, Amina informs the concern for helping the aged couple. Therefore in current scenario Alicia came to ask Mr and Mrs Riley for further assistance on behalf of Social Services. In this scenario there was some points that are needed to be mentioned regarding the communication gap between the concern, Alicia and the couple. Alicia started with the reference of a call from Social Services, which Mr. and Mrs. Riley never received. This kind of communication gap among the authority, manager and the social worker from the organization is not at all a good practice. According to key professional standard that should be maintained by a social worker in England, the social worker must have good information and communication balance with the organization as well as with the client (Social Work England, 2019). However, Alicia might not confirm whether the couple received any call from Social Services. Hence, in reference to the standard of social workers in England it can be stated that Alicia was not successful in establishing the trust and confidence of Jenny and Morris, therefore Morris at first place told Alicia not to mention them with the first name (Social Work England, 2019). Reamer has recently discussed on the importance of digital and electronic services on development of good communication in social work with an emphasize on dual relationship, client referral, as well as ethical issues a social worker should maintain. (Reamer, 2013) On the other hand Alicia was quiet polite and gentle in behaviour and finally was able to get acceptance and appreciation from Mr. and Mrs. Riley. According to the standards of social work in England this is a very important skill for social and emotional competency over social workers (Kiman, et al, 2010). The carer of Mr and Mrs Riley, Amina and her organisation, Age Concern made a big mistake, they asked Social Services to help the aged couple without any consent from the couple, which is supposed to be the first and foremost duty of a health care professional (NMC, 2018). Moreover, Social Services did not ask for consent from Mr. and Mrs. Riley regarding the visit of Alicia. However, with a good apologetic behaviour Alicia managed the situation. This kind of intelligent behaviour is important for social workers for managing an inconvenience (Huuskonen, et al, 2013). Alicia throughout the meeting in each step asked proper consent from the client and at the same time she promoted the health service in a safe and respectful manner.

Concerned ethical issues in the chosen case study

Caring the older and vulnerable people needs rigorous ethical interventions during the practice. In this regard following points needed to be addressed :

In current scenario Mr. and Mrs. Riley are aged people, they have a history of migration and Mrs. Riley has severe problem of arthritis. Caring of aged people from different ethnic and socio-economic class needs an proper ethics of equal treatment. (Social Work England, 2019)

Mr. and Mrs. Riley lost their only son 5 years back and need good emotional care during any kind of care giving approach.

Asking for consent is a major issue in social work and as the concern couple are aged they should be treated with more care in this regard. Goldberg et al. have discussed the importance of consent seeking among older adults (Goldberg, et al, 2012).

Listening in one to one conversation is very important and for older adults like Mr. and Mrs. Riley this should be done with high level of dignity and privacy.

The professional relationship and the way of addressing is important for a social worker for one-to-one communication.

Listening to the older people and questioning them gently is utmost necessity for social workers .

A clear cut communication between the health care sectors and the social workers is necessary for giving most effective, integrated adult healthcare (NMC, 2018).

Pros and Cons of this approach

In the above stated ethical issues the importance of consent seeking has discussed properly. In this case Alicia did this job properly in all aspect. However, the healthcare and social care organisation did not take any consent prior to the visit of Alicia. The good thing the organization, Social Services did is the helping facility for the old age people is free of cost for the pension holders. (Daly, et al, 2018 ) Another significant point is that there was a very good communication among the Social Services and the Age Concern organization, (Bardsley, et al, 2013) which is not only appreciable but also necessary to give proper care to the older person with disability in movement. Moreover, Alicia allowed them to take sufficient time for making a decision, but she promoted the care giving service which is an important duty of a social worker.

In future the pitfalls of the communication among the patient and organization should be irradiated with proper way of telephonic communication and at the same time consent should be taken prior to any intervention.

Conclusion

A good practice of social work related to healthcare sector needs proper one-to-one communication skills with proper ethical practice. In the current case study scenario in-spite of various communication gap between patient/concern and the organization the social worker was able to mitigate the problems by promoting the importance of social services.

References

Bardsley, M., Steventon, A., Smith, J. and Dixon, J., 2013. Evaluating integrated and community-based care. London: Nuffield Trust.

Daly, M. and Westwood, S., 2018. Asset-based approaches, older people and social care: an analysis and critique. Ageing and Society, 38(6), pp.1087-1099.

Goldberg, S.E., Whittamore, K.H., Harwood, R.H., Bradshaw, L.E., Gladman, J.R., Jones, R.G. and Medical Crises in Older People Study Group, 2012. The prevalence of mental health problems among older adults admitted as an emergency to a general hospital. Age and ageing, 41(1), pp.80-86.

Huuskonen, S. and Vakkari, P., 2013. “I Did It My Way”: Social workers as secondary designers of a client information system. Information processing & management, 49(1), pp.380-391.

Kinman, G. and Grant, L., 2010. Exploring stress resilience in trainee social workers: The role of emotional and social competencies. The British Journal of Social Work, 41(2), pp.261-275.

Nursing & Midwifery Council, 2018. The Code: Professional standards of practice and behaviour for nurses, midwives and nursing associates.

Reamer, F.G., 2013. Social work in a digital age: Ethical and risk management challenges. Social work, 58(2), pp.163-172.