Partnerships in Healthcare

The partnership is a formal official arrangement of entities and or individuals to work together. The partnership importantly helps to find the problem and to solve the problems in local communities.

So, the partnership can be defined as an arrangement where entities and individuals agree to work together to achieve a common goal. So it is also define as relationship which exists between two or more persons joined to perfume a trade or business. The successful and effective partnership always should have some of the key characteristics. It should have effective vision and leaderships and there should be strong willingness to learn and listen among the partnership. It should have enough resources to succed.other key characteristics can also be the capacity of strangely development, evalution and review of the strategy implemented to successfully work together in partnership.

The key elements required for a successful health care partnership are promotion, prevention, cure, support and rehabilitation. Any partnership to be effective interaction at the same time, the partnership in health care should be addressing acceptable and appropriate resident’s needs. In common practice, the partnership is degree of integration depends on the nature and the purposed aim .the key features are;-

1) Communication;-each involved entity should be well informed about the action.

2) Co-ordination;-the partner can works separate but each other’s action should always be co-ordinated.

3) Collaboration;-the partner should cohesively work together.

4) Integration;-though they are the partners but they still should work together as one agency.

There are different levels of integration of partnership so, the partnership and its continuum differs from individual service user to government level. It also differs from operational through strategic to policy level. The vertical to horizontal integration within or between the same or different agencies and the less integrated partnership through co-ordinated and fully integrated can also be other way of integrating any partnerships to work toward a common motive. The health and social care sector implements different level of integration in partnership. The partnership and its collaboration are highly influenced by the policy. The recent government policy’s set out by the government for health and social care agencies to work together more effectively in partnership and in collaboration help agencies to bring considerable benefits to services, there users and the wider community. According to search policies the health and social care sectors are required to work in partnership to address the wider issues of health and social care like poverty, employment, poor housing and poor educational opportunities. So the common agenda of partnership and its collaboration in health and social care is “policy driven joined up thinking “and “joined up working”. for example;-a health and social care partnership called every child matters.(DFES2004;9)states that the joint up working enables the progress of improving health of young people in care and educational improvement of young children.

So it is a very crucial factor for government and its policy for various organisations to work in partnership to achieve the set slandered and goal. The governments priority becomes organisation, “joint of thinking “and “joint up working “.the more and effectively organisation work in partnership, the better the outcome. So it is always an interest of government to set common goals and objectives for partnership. The partnership in health and social care in even more crucial so the government always emphasizes the organisation involved in this sector to work as a team and come as joint up thinking working to serve the community better. The housing, education, family, social care and health are main sectors in which the government has always priorities the effective joint up working and thinking in partnership.

TYPES OF PARTNERSHIPS AND OBJECTIVE:-

• Partnership between two public authorities.
• Partnership between public authorities and communities.
• Development partnership.
• International association partnerships.

A partnership is normally associates multi parties involved so it always is;-

• Multidisciplinary
• Multiprofessional
• Multisectoral

Multidisciplinary;-a multidisciplinary types of partnership involves various entities from the same sector working independently to achieve a common purpose. In the case of health and social care sector, the nurses,doctors,midwifes,physiotherapists and occupation therapists work together with clients and this sort of partnership is called multidisciplinary partnership.

Multiprofessional;-another partnership called multiprofessional in which is many professional like nurses, doctors, and pharmacists etc.work together to achieve some common goals in health and care sectors.

Multispectral;-sect oral partnership, many organisations from different sectors of the society work together but independently. For example;-a nurse from a sector of health assists people without basis health factors to know about AIDS, cancer etc.similarly a worker from housing sector helps homeless people to realise the risk of disease as a homeless and assists them accordingly to get some basis housing facilities.

In another partnership called “inter partnership” different entities or organisations work together in a collaborative way for a common purpose. The open referral systems and self referral processes for example;-a telephone health line types of strategies are used in this partnership.

The interdisciplinary partnership involves the role definition sessions which means nurses, social workers and housing officers jointly assess the housing requirement of a client and the outcome help for effective housing arrangements.

Inter-professional partnerships involve various professional working together by exchanging and sharing information which help them to act. According to client’s situation. This partnership involves various stages of interactions. In the case of health and social care, schools teachers from education sector, nurses from health sectors, parents and students as clients from public sector, social workers from assistance in the government sector work together to design various income support programmes to enable kids in school get proper meals, better education and necessary health support.

So in summary, if the partnership from different sector of society works separately and indepently achieve a common purpose then it is called multidisciplinary partnership. It involves multisectoral and multiprofessional types of partnerships.

If partnership from different sectors of society work interdependently together for a common goal then it becomes interdisciplinary partnership. The interprofessional, intersectoral are its types. We can further categorise, a partnership to “intra”partnership which can also be categorised as “interdisciplinary and intrasectroal.if entities from or within a same domains work collaboratively for common goal, then it called intra partnership. If the nurses from practice and educational sectors work together to design a programme for new aspiring nursing students for the best opportunity, then it becomes extraprofessional partnership in health and social sector. Similarly if nurses,physiotherapist,pharmaciest,doctors from same health sector work together to develop a programme which will help patients to access health care facilities from home, then it’s called intra-sectoral partnership. So intradepending working partners from same domains for a common goal has interdisciplinary, intrasectoral and intraprofessional sub types.

CHARACTERISTIC OF PARTNERSHIP:-

The common characteristics of any partnership establish common purpose. The definition of partnership should be clear among partners and there should be a respect as a valued partner. The expectation of any partners normally is that every one work as a team and should work towards objectives of the organisation. The information has to be communicated effectively among all the partners involved.so, the partnership to be successful it should have some well defined objective and well strategies .so any types of partnership (separate organisation, virtual organation, co-locating staff from partner organisation and steering group without aedicated staff resources) whichever model it can be, should be capable of communicating and implementing the strategies effectively.

The managed clinical networks. Managed care network and obligate network in NHS and social care in Scotland and Wales have been some good practice of effective partnership in health and social care sector in the UK.

The obligate networks have been succefully working in the partnership among clinical support networks between rural and remote areas and larger centres. Such partnerships have increased access to care patient safety, and improved working relationship in the areas. For example-mental health, learning disabilities etc.in some specific region of the UK.

The lined group of primary, secondary and territory health care professionals have been successfully formed as partners to provide high quality OF clinical networks. These types of networks have reached effectively beyond health sector, even the horizontal integration of various care agencies have been able to provide high quality health and care service by forming managed clinical networks. As the expectation of public is raising and the personal needs are complex, so the health and social care networks in the future will be multi agency collaborations various partner organisation.

So, the partnership is always successful and effective if two or more independent bodies work collectively to achieve more effective outcomes then they could have it if worked separately.

So, the objectives of a partnership should be:-

• To improve service and access.
• To build capacity in public agencies and skills at workplace capacity building.
• To make the community stronger and more accountable services.
• To achieve common goals which also enable to achieve individual companies other objective as well.

THE BENEFITS OF PARTNERSHIP (IN THE CASE OF NHS SECTOR)

The partnership among different stake holder organisation in the NHS helps to serve the partners and communities better with improved services. it helps to provide quality service at effective cost.

The management staffs are better prepared to provide quality service and to meet financial challenges.

It overall boosts the morale of staffs and increases the motivation.

The employee, employer relations are better and the productivity is increased as well.

The ability to adapt the changes accordingly.

The joint problem solving environment among partners in NHS enables effective use of resources, innovative productivity.

The responsibility of NHS sector for health in the community (The healthy community) is broadened which also in proves public’s perception. It helps to gain confidence in health related issues to the involved parties.

More opportunities are exposed through shared learning.

The development of joint health strategies action plans projects provide lots of new opportunities, the knowledge in the organisation is significantly increased.

The case study of down south NHS trust.

As the case study explains the importance of partnership among parties involve in the down south NHS trust, the trust has significantly developed its partnership and the goals and objectives of the trust is efficiently achieved. The blue start care home has been a successful partner in the care home sector. The partnerships with trade unions, education institution, care home and almost one thousands staffs of different professions have played key role for the down south NHS trust to be successful in the field. Serving more than two and half thousands patients would not have been successful without the efficient and professional partnership among the stakeholders.

As it has been under stood that the trust and confidence are very crucial among partners. When information of service users is known among all the staffs of partner organisation it is very upsetting for the parties involved so, the confidence of information, data protection etc becomes key elements among the partners so the management of the NHS trust should take immediate necessary actions for the confidentiality of information handling of service users.

As the down town NHS trust has partnership with others organisation (Care centres) to look after people recovering from strike; then main focus is given only on stroke cases which neglects the other problems then stroke. So, the partners of this project should be taught about identifying other serious symptoms of any other disease (Health problem) and referring them to respective authorities.

One of the biggest drawbacks in the bigger partnership organisation is the autonomy of different functional bodies in some decision making as the NHS trust has some partner organisations in every project; the staffs are too much dependable in small decision making problems, so these should be some sort of flexibility in the indecency for staffs from unions and managers while making some daily common issues decision. If flexibility in the dependency is decision making is implemented, the down south NHS will perform even better, if the managers have not to be too dependent while following the care plans, the patients would benefit with fast, efficient and cost effective health care solutions.

The decision making process is always very cruicial for any organisation. The right decision right reason at right time is key to the success of any strategy. So, down south NHS trust should follow the rules and giddiness set out by the department of health but it should always not be highly influenced by it while making many decisions locally, most of the situation the management should be able to use some common sense to make decision so, it is strongly advisable to follow the basic rules of department of health but at the same time the mutual trust among the partner invoiced in different projects of down south NHS also becomes important for the success of its projects.

So, the down south NHS trusts management should always be very careful at handling of confidential information of partner organisations service users. The trust among partners and service users should be one of key priorities of the down south NHS trust. There should be some flexibility for staffs so they do not have to be too much dependable every time with unions and managers for small day to day decision making procedures .The quicker and easier decision making process helps the trust for smooth and efficient operation of its services.

So, in order to be any partnership successful, there should be an agreement of necessity of partnership. There should be respect and trust between different interests, the effective management of organisation should take time to build the partnerships for shared agendas. The projects or expected achievement is possible only through responsible partnership, good communication; collaborative decision-making commitment to achieve objectives of the partnership, another key to success of any partnerships is the leadership. The people who are leaders of a partnerships project should be highly respected individuals with strong leaderships and management skills.

So, the leadership and senior management in down south NHS trust should always consider above mentioned crucially important elements for the success of partnerships.

The history of various organisations working in partnership have succeeded or failed. As the above mentioned points are the key elements for success so any partnership ignoring these facts are failed. Some of the elements responsible for the failure of any partnerships can be the conflicts among many key interests. If one partner dominates or manipulates then also the partnership can be failed. The lack of defined clear purpose, unrealistic goals, unmatched way of working between goals and objectives are also other key points of partnership failure. The lack of effective communication, transparent and trustworthy working environment among partners are other elements of partnership failure. If key interests are missing between partners and if the financial and time commitments outweigh the targeted benefits then also partnerships are deem to failure.

So, in summary, the down south NHS trust has lots of commitments in partnership projects and the mechanism cannot be always very smooth in partnership but the trust management should not neglect any elements those may lead to failure of the partnerships. As cure, support, prevention and rehabilitation are the key essentials of health care projects so down south NHS trust should always consider their key objectives in mind to run successfully the partnership projects.

The leadership of down south NHS should always think seriously about handling the personal information of service users and maintaining anything related to service users confidential.

The flexibility in some common day to day decision making procedures will enhance the productivity and efficiency of the organisation. So, the management at the down south NHS trust should be flexible enough to implement such mechanisms which will increase the life of their partnership projects.

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