Elephant in the room

Journal of Integrated Care, Ahead of Print. Purpose The purpose of this paper is to report on the findings of the first stage of a project seeking to evaluate and overcome inter-professional barriers between health and social care staff within a single, co-located, integrated community team. The project seeks to answer the following questions: first, Do inter-professional barriers to integrated working exist between health and social care staff at the interface of care delivery? Second, If inter-professional barriers exist, can joint health and social care assessments help to overcome them? The paper develops the current evidence base through findings from a staff questionnaire and the initial findings of a pilot study of joint health and social care assessments aimed at overcoming inter-professional barriers to integration. Design/methodology/approach The first stage of the project involved running an anonymous, online questionnaire with health and social care staff within a single, co-located community adult health and social care team. The questionnaire aimed to explore staffs ’ perceptions of inter-professional collaboration when assessing the health and care needs of service users with a high degree of complexity of need. The second element of the study presents the initial findings of a small pilot of joint health and social care assessments. A second staff survey wa s used in order to provide a “before and after” comparative analysis and to demonstrate the effe...
Source: Journal of Integrated Care - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research