Enhancing Healthcare Through Inter-Professional Collaboration

Introduction

In healthcare, inter-professional working is referred to as the collaborative way of working in which members of different professions and agencies work collectively in offering integrated health and social care support to the patients for the benefit of their improved health outcomes (Holmes et al., 2020). This is essential to allow a wider number of expert and skilled individuals to share ideas and knowledge in setting best care plan for holistic health improvement of the service users (Aghamohammadi et al., 2018). In the essay, my professional role was to act as registered nurse caring for Ahmed at the hospital whose responsibility was to create effective care plan and discharge plan for Ahmed to ensure retaining his good well-being and health. The key issues to be resolved in making the care is cooperation of Karim (Ahmed’s son) to arrange care plan for Ahmed who wants the care to be performed at home with no idea way he can contribute as he stays a major part of the day out of home to work and earn money for living.

Main Body

In inter-professional working, the role of a nurse in relation to other professionals is that the nurse shares the patient data with potential experts required to be involved in arranging better care of the patient (Pasyar et al., 2017). A similar role was played by me as a nurse for Ahmed where I identified the potential multi-professionals such as physiotherapists, at-home nurses and others to be involved in taking care of the patients to ensure his well-being. The legislation related with taking steps for Ahmed is Data Protection Act 2018 and Health and Social Care Act 2018. The Data Protection Act 2018 mentions to keep the patient data confidential and assure privacy of the patient with exception of allowing the patient data to be shared with professionals when the patient needs them to provide the individual care for best interest (legislation.gov.uk, 2018). Thus, my role in the data protection of Ahmed was to ensure his health records are shared only with the interprofessional who are required to be involved in his care for his best interest. However, the role of the other professionals in protecting data of Ahmed was to ensure the information is not leaked under any condition beyond them.

The Health and Social Care Act 2018 mentions that it has the purpose to promote the provision of guidance and advice to health professionals, working staff, nurses and others for processing enhanced health care to be provided to the patient (legislation.gov.uk, 2018a). Thus, my role as per the Act is to communicate with responsible authorities to achieve guidance and support for developing inter-professional care for the patient. In order to arrange care for Ahmed, I communicated with his key carer that is Karim to inform that residential care is an effective place for him to receive further long-term support. This is because Ahmed has reduced mobility due to stroke which has made him incapable to stand properly, performing bathing, cleaning and other everyday livelihood activities.

The direct communication with the key carer of Ahmed is a good approach because key carers of the patient have ideas regarding the core needs and demands of care that are to be fulfilled for the patient to ensure them enhanced well-being (Lotfi et al., 2019). It is argued by Barratt and Thomas (2019), failure to connect with the carer in setting care plan of the patients leads to hindered care scenario. This is because in such condition the nurses remain unaware of specific needs of the patient which went remain unfulfilled causes dissatisfaction of care for the patient. Karim identified that Ahmed’s cultural and religious needs would not be met at the residential care home indicating the nurse to avoid the idea of putting him in such care.

The thing which went well was that in setting, the inter-professional care plan for Ahmed on discharging him from the hospital was developed by consulting and communicating with the patient. It is evident as Ahmed was directly asked by me as the nurse if he wish to access residential care with his cultural and religious needs to be fulfilled with separate arrangement. As argued by Udod and Lobchuk (2017), lack of direct communication with the patient to develop discharge care plan by the nurses is that specific needs and preferences of the care of the patient remain unidentified leading to partial care delivery. Thus, the inclusion of the voice of Ahmed in setting the plan avoided the adversity. The other thing which went well is that effective inter-professional care was able to be arranged for Ahmed to ensure his holistic care and protection while accessing care at home. It is evident as the physiotherapist who is to be involved in promoting movement of Ahmed after stroke to make him regain self-sufficiency to walk, bath, clean and dress with independence is identified and arranged for Ahmed. Moreover, a nurse to be taking care of Ahmed at home after being discharged from the hospital is also arranged for him.

In inter-professional care, the role of the nurse is to act legally and ethically to arrange care for the patients (Liu, 2020). The further legislation considered to be related to developing ethically-approved inter-professional support for Ahmed are Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, Equality Act 2010 and Human Rights Act 1998. According to the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, the suitability of the volunteers and employees caring for the patient is to be evaluated to ensure they are not involved in any abusive act for providing care to the patient (legislation.gov.uk, 2006). In regard to the legislation, in setting inter-professional care for Ahmed, as a nurse I ensured background checking of the nurse to provide him care at home and physiotherapist to support him are suitable to deliver care to stroke patients like him. The Equality Act 2010 mentions that no discrimination in care is to be made for the individual irrespective of their race, religion, culture, sex and others (legislation.gov.uk, 2010). However, the Human Rights Act 1998 mentions that each of the individual has the right to worship, teach, observe and others to manifest their religion and cultural believes (legislation.gov.uk, 1998). In respect to the Acts, as a nurse I ensured no discriminatory care is provided Ahmed on religion grounds and ensured their rights to manifest their religion is ensured. This is reason behind allowing Ahmed to stay at home and recover through care as the care home did not have the facility of supporting his religious needs that may have led to discriminating care towards him.

In inter-professional working, a synergistic influence of the skills and knowledge of individuals are to be involved in making collaborative decision-making. The process was effectively followed in arranging care for Ahmed as a nurse which is evident as I formed a collaborative connection with the nurse to provide him care at home and the physiotherapist to collaboratively agree to the timeframe in providing health reports of the individual. Moreover, as a nurse for Ahmed, meeting with the inter-professional team taking responsibility for his care was arranged to collective discuss the care to be provided to him to ensure he returns home safely and live in a friendly and safe environment. In inter-professional care, the role of the nurse is to educate the patient and family members regarding the reason of mentioned treatment and care plans for the patient (Berduzco-Torres et al., 2020). As a nurse, I informed and educate Ahmed and Karim regarding the need of physiotherapists, nurses and social worker. Thus, the thing which went well was that an effective approach was taken to make the service users and family develop informed decision regarding inter-professional care (Schot et al., 2020).

The thing which did not went well is that during arrangement of inter-professional care for Ahmed, he was not informed regarding the way he could inform any abuse or harm towards him at home after the discharge. The failure to inform and lack of idea of informing abuse among the patients makes them experience hindered well-being (Staniszewska et al., 2019). Thus, the safe care for Ahmed could not assured after discharge by me as a nurse. Moreover, as a nurse for Ahmed, the other thing which did not went well is that I failed to review the economical condition of him and his son so as to determine if they are capable to afford care at home. In addition, I failed to assess and review Karim’s intension of not sending his father to residential care home to be due to financial abuse or not. This is because Ahmed is seen to be immobile and sending him to residential care would have made Karim to live without home as it to be sold for arranging the care.

Conclusion

The above discussion led to inform that effective inter-professional care is tried to be arranged for Ahmed by me as the nurse. In setting inter-professional care, one of the barriers faced in lack of training among the inter-professionals to work collaboratively with others (). In this condition, unnecessary conflicts are raised because without the idea of collaborative working, the professional are unable to understand to share their skills and roles of care to work as a team in delivering support to the patient (Roy et al., 2020). The other barriers faced in inter-professional care delivery is lack of an effective mechanism in making timely exchange of data with others. This is because often hindered communication mechanisms are present in the care environment that hindered effective meeting development between the professionals to assist them in collaboratively discussing task to play an individual role as a team (Auschra, 2018).

The challenge with inter-professional working is hindered trust of different professionals towards one another which makes them avoid collaboratively work in delivering care (Mertens et al., 2021). The other challenge faced in inter-professional care delivery is the limited presence of coordination at work between professionals as one considers another to be superior of them or due to miscommunication (Liu, 2020). In the current study, none of the mentioned barriers and challenges of inter-professional working was faced for Ahmed because effective way of communication and team meetings are arranged where shared decisions are allowed to be taken by discussion and involvement of all professionals at an equal level.

In order to summarise regarding my ability to work as a nurse for delivering and arranging care for Ahmed, I would use Rolfe’s reflective model. This is because it would help me reflect on my strength and weakness while summarising my experience (Rolfe and Freshwater, 2020). The Rolfe’s model includes three stages that are What?, So what? and Now What?. The What stage mentions that I am involved in arranging interprofessional care support for Ahmed who is currently facing hindered health condition due to sudden stroke. The So What stage would indicate the actions taken were good and bad among them. The inter-professional care for Ahmed made him able to provided support at home and his movement of residential care was no more required. This ensured effective care within the residential area of the patient making him remain in the familiar environment to avail care. The thing which went well for Ahmed on taking inter-professional care was that he was that effectively qualified professionals are able to be involved in delivering care to him which is intended to later make him self-independent and encouraged to take his own care. The thing which did not went well is that enhanced evaluation of the reason mentioned by Karim was not done to ensure the individual is making the care decision of not sending his father to care home for Ahmed’s benefit and not to live of his finances and property. In the now What stage, the action determined to be performed is effective evaluation of the truth behind Karim’s decision to ensure his father is kept at home for care. The other improvement to be made in providing collaborative working training to the interprofessional involved in taking care of Ahmed to ensure avoiding rise of conflict. Moreover, a steady and regular health check-up of Ahmed while being cared for at home is to be done to ensure his progress in health and determine the additional needs to be fulfilled with ongoing care.

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