Reflective Practices in Health and Social Care

Introduction

The reflection is significant in the field of health and social care as it assists to challenge and improve practices by highlighting the strength and weakness of the individuals involved in providing services. The reflection on the care activities in health and social care also provides an opportunity at each level of the caring process to decide if appropriate actions are taken to ensure quality care is delivered to the service users. In this assignment, the purpose of reflection and the models to be used for reflecting on health and social care is to be discussed. The way personal reflection assisted in health and support services is to be explained. The six Practice Themes regarding reflection is to be analysed and they are to be linked with performance indicators to determine the way they are improving practice.

P1 Explanation of the purpose of reflection in health and social care practice

The process of reflection used in the health and social care by the service providers and professionals to assess, review and analyse their experiences of activities. This is to develop theoretical concepts by professionals in the health and social care field regarding the changes to be made in their skills and activities to deliver quality services (Redmond, 2017). The reflection is used by me in health and social care to determine the strength and weakness of the existing knowledge and skills so that improvement in aspects to be made for better future service delivery can be understood. In health and social care practice, the reflection is done with the purpose to analyse the current way of delivering services for identifying mistakes and right being done so that they can be rectified with the proper approach in future (Hardacre and Hayes, 2016). This is because reflection highlights the faulty steps and approaches that are leading to the mistake caused during health and social care services.

In health and social care, the reflection is executed with the purpose to help the professionals develop awareness regarding the aspects to be improved to deliver better support in future and maintain continuous professional development (Yu et al. 2019). This is evident as reflection makes professionals aware of the aspects they are lagging to be improved in a continuous manner for better future. The reflection in health and social care has the purpose to make the professionals become confident regarding the services they are providing and have clear thought regarding the activities being executed (Xiao and Zhu, 2019). The reflection in the mentioned field also has the purpose to deliver education to professionals regarding the way certain complex support is to be provided to service users. This is because evaluating other’s reflective practices helps the professionals in health and social care field understand steps to be followed for delivering support services in complex condition (Glassburn et al. 2019).

P2 Description of models and tools implement in reflecting on health and social care practice

The Gibb’s reflective cycle and Kobe’s reflective Cycle are the frequently used models implemented for performing reflection in the field of health and social care practice. The Gibb’s reflective cycle is made of five stages which are description, feelings, evaluation, conclusion and action plan (Oham et al. 2016). In the model, at the description stage detailed occurrence of the event based on which the reflection is to be done is mentioned. In the feelings stage, the emotions and thoughts of the reflector during the event are mentioned and in the evaluation stage, the situational weakness and strength of the event and the reflector is determined. At the conclusion stage, the summarization of the information that requires attention is mentioned and based on the fact in the action plan stage activities are mention which is to be executed by the reflector for better future performance (Setharesn and Asselin, 2017). The evaluation stage is important to help the reflector understand what worked well and what failed so that the person can develop awareness about the further aspects to be done and focussed for the betterment of services as well as their skills.

The Kolbe's reflective cycle consists of four stages that are concrete experience, reflection observation, abstract conceptualisation and active experimentation. In concrete experience, the situation encountered by the reflector is mentioned and at reflective observation stage, the presence of inconsistencies in between experience and understanding are determined and understood. In abstract conceptualisation stage, the reflector is to determine the modification to be done based on the learned from the experience and in the active experimentation stage, the reflector is to implement the developed ideas to determine of improvement happens as thought (Hoxmeier and Lenk, 2020). The following the steps of the model is essential as it leads the reflector or learner to develop critical thinking along with have the ability to make decisions based on facts to resolve the identified problem experienced in the situation.

M1 Review of the ways reflective practice is implemented in health and support services

In health and social care, reflection is implemented by professionals to determine the reason behind the dissatisfaction of a service user or patient (Mamykina et al. 2016). It is an effective way of applying reflection as it helps the professionals determine the weakness in the existing skills of the service providers as well as limitations in the situation that is to be improved and resolved to ensure delivering high-quality and satisfied services to service users in future. However, without reflection, the understanding of wrong aspects of care support used in the situation would be difficult for the professional making the person unable to determine the changes to be done to ensure greater satisfaction of the patients (Knott and Scragg, 2016). The reflection in care support environments is used to determine the complications faced in delivering specific care to the service users (Adams et al. 2016). This is an effective use of reflection as it helps the professionals understand the core reason due to which the complications arose as well as determine the nature of negligence created by others due to which such a situation was experienced. The reflection in the care support environment is used for determining the reason behind a failed procedure of care. This an essential implementation of reflection as it helps the professionals become aware of the aspects that are to be changed for avoiding any such failure in future (Adams et al. 2016).

D1 Evaluation of the way personal reflection can effect in person and professional development in health and social care

In my placement, while acting as a mental health nurse the use of the reflection leads me aware of the strength and weakness in skills and knowledge I have to care for patients suffering from dementia. This is because while caring for a male elderly patient with dementia in the placement I tried personally with the involvement of the patient’s family members to show empathy to the patient to allow the individual develop trust towards me in showing acceptance towards my support services. However, I was seen to fail in establishing trust with the person during early care in turn leading me to deliver initial dissatisfied care to the patient. During reflection of the experience, I identified that the family members of the patient were actually abusive and since I forgot to take permission from the patient regarding the involvement of the family in determining the person’s care I failed in providing successful care to the patient. The use of Gibb’s reflective cycle to further reflect on the incidence led me understand that I do have the strength of effective understanding of mental health theories. This is because while I was initially failing to provide satisfied care for the service user I analysed different mental health theories which led me determine the changes to be done in practice in turn leading me to deliver satisfied care to the patient.

P3 Explanation of the way Practice Themes is to be used for underpinning reflection in learning and practice

The six key Practice Themes to be used for reflection in learning and practice within health and social care field include law and ethical practice, professional values, safeguarding in health and social care, promoting and valuing diversity, promoting mental and physical health and applied mathematics (Pearson, 2017). The Law, Regulation and Ethical Practice theme lead the learners to provide reflection regarding their ability and understating to work in line with the lawful policies and regulation along with ethical considerations (Pearson, 2017). Thus, this theme dictates the duties and responsibilities followed by the learners to avoid any legal, confidentiality or discrimination issues in care delivery. The professional values, behaviour and attitude theme assist to reflect on the understanding by the carer regarding their professional attitudes, values and behaviour effect on the quality of care offered by them to the service users (Pearson, 2017). Thus, the theme helps the learner to determine the professional improvement to be made to promote positive working as well as develop successful caring relationship with the service users.

The safeguarding in health and social care them informs the learner to determine their extent of knowledge as well as skills to ensure health, safety and well-being of the service users and colleagues as per safeguarding policy. This theme dictates the learner determine the responsibilities to be executed and principles of safeguarding to be adhered to deliver safe and healthy care to service users (Pearson, 2017). Thus, the theme helps the service users understand the way concern regarding safety issues to be made to ensure safety of the service users as well as their colleges. The fourth theme that is valuing and promotion of diversity lead the learners to reflect on their ability to deliver fair and equitable care to service users based on their different needs (Pearson, 2017). Thus, the theme helps the service providers to determine their extent of adaption to be made in care service delivery so that different demands and needs of service users are met without providing any nature of discriminative services.

The promotion of physical and mental health theme supports the learners to reflect on their level of knowledge and skill to support the individual needs of the service users (Pearson, 2017). Thus, the theme helps learners to determine their ability of developing and sharing best strategies as well as care practices with others for accomplishing the individual needs of service users through evidence-based practice. The applied mathematics skill supports learners to reflect on their technology skills and knowledge in healthcare practice (Pearson, 2017). Thus, the theme allows the learners to reflect on their ability in administering medication and offering other nature of services through proper measurements with the help of technological and medical devices to the service users.

P4 Illustration of the link between Practice Themes and other performance indicators

The legal, regulation and ethical theme is related to diversified and legalised service delivery performance indicator. This is because the service providers by following appropriate legal duties and providing ethically approved care services are able to avoid discrimination and ensure services are provided to patients of different diversified communities in equal manner (Yamanis et al. 2019). The professional values, attitude and behaviour theme is linked with professionally appropriate care performance indicator. This is because providing care by maintaining professional values and attitudes along with behaviour leads the service providers to deliver care that is professionally approved as per mentioned standards in the profession (Moyo et al. 2016). The safeguarding in health and social care theme is linked with assuring safety and health standards of service users. This is because following safeguarding standards helps service providers deliver protected and safe services to patients (Tuomisto et al. 2019).

The valuing and promotion of diversity is linked with equality care performance indicators. This is because offering care to all with proper promotion of diversity helps in delivering equal care without creating any discrimination (Canfield et al. 2020). The promotion of physical and mental health theme is linked with the satisfaction of patient performance indicators. This is because promoting health of patients both physically and mentally would allow them to have body as well as emotional strength to lead a normal life without being burden of care on others (Moyo et al. 2016). The applied mathematics theme is linked with deliver of proper use of equipment and administration of correct dosage of medication performance indicator. This is because it would help the service providers to use technological medical equipment in proper way to deliver care to service users (Yamanis et al. 2019).

Conclusion

The discussion mentions that reflection in health and social care has the purpose to improve the existing services, aware health professionals of their mistake and others. The Gibb’s reflective cycle and Kolve’s reflective cycle are models most prominently used for reflection in health and social care. The six Practice Themes related to health and social care are legal and ethical consideration, professional values, health and safety care, value and promote diversity, promote physical and mental health and applied mathematics. The themes are related to performance indicators such as patient satisfaction, diversified care, equal care and others.

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