Health And Social Care Adults



Health And Social Care Adults

Introduction

This research focuses on issues of difference and diversity in a specific sense. Rather than analysing diversity in terms of kinds of communication and relationships, the focus here shifts to diversity in terms the people involved in interactions in care settings. Again, it is simple common sense to state that 'good' communication in health and social care services involves acknowledging and responding to the diverse needs and backgrounds of everyone involved, whether service users or staff. In the context of care services, it is not unusual for people to say, for example, that 'everyone is different' and 'we aim to treat all our patients/clients/workers as unique individuals'. However, while agreeing that, at one level, 'everyone is different', and that each person brings a unique combination of needs, experiences and attributes to every interaction, in this research we shall claim that some 'differences' matter - or more accurately are made to matter - more than others, in people's everyday experience of using and working in care services.

Discussion

The kinds of 'difference' explored in this research are related to what are sometimes called people's social identities: that is, their membership of particular groups that are said to share common experiences and needs. These include differences on the basis of 'race' and ethnicity, gender, disability, age and sexuality. What marks out these apparent differences from other kinds of diversity is both their importance in structuring people's everyday experience, including their experience of health and social care services, and the ways in which they are used to define certain people as 'other', or as different from a supposed 'norm'.

Issues of diversity and difference have been an important focus of discussion and debate, and a significant strand in the development of policy and practice in the care sector since the 1970s. Starting with feminist and anti-racist campaigns in the 1970s and 1980s, there have been a range of initiatives, both at the level of government legislation (NHS Executive, 2000) and in terms of specific policy and practice guidelines, designed to combat prejudice and discrimination, and develop equality of access and participation. Issues of communication have played a large part in these debates and initiatives, arising from concerns about apparent 'communication problems' affecting particular groups of service users or staff. Many initiatives in the area of diversity have been designed to address and overcome such 'problems', whether this involves providing interpreters for people who do not speak English, producing literature in commresearchy languages, or installing hearing loops and Braille signs for people with hearing and visual impairments.

However, in what ways do issues of diversity and difference impact on interpersonal communication in the context of health and social care? Is diversity a 'problem' and if so, what exactly is the nature of the problem, and whose problem is it? How is the way people think about these practical issues influenced by different ways of thinking about the nature of 'difference', and how is it produced and perpetuated? Most importantly, ...