SOCIAL CARE

Working in Partnership in Health and Social Care



Working in Partnership in Health and Social Care

Introduction

There are many references to the need of partnerships in social and health care agencies. The social and health care agencies are needed to work together in close collaboration with each other so that they can work more effectively and efficiently. Collaborations and partnerships are often used interchangeably. The terminologies are mostly policy driven that make way for the terms like joined up working and joined up thinking. Many of the observers call the world that we live in today a postmodern world. There are a number of ways in which the social work, as well as, health care is provided to the people all around the world. These have provided solutions to many of the problems that the people are facing these days. The large scale attempt to solve the problems of the people have offered a number of solutions to the people who are suffering from problems (Beresford, 2000). This began in 1980s in Britain, where both the professionals, as well as, system have been seen as disempowering for the receivers of the services and the clients. Social care and the health care services have been encouraged to allow the clients and the users of the services to become more involved in the services that they are using.

Discussion

The need of partnerships in the health care and social services cannot be denied. This need for partnerships was also reflected in the policies that were made at the end of the last century. This was done when the community development , education, joint employment, as well as, the deployment of the staff was seen as a necessary thing to solve the local problems that the people were facing (Cooper, 2004). It is since then that the partnerships between the professionals, as well as, the clients also became important. Greenall (2006) also viewed that the partners and the clients these days laid more emphasis on being viewed as partners in the services that are offered to them. There is also a lot of emphasis that is laid on the partnerships between the agencies that are the service providers for the clients. If there is an effective partnership between the local government, as well as, the service providers of the health care and the social services, the results of the services are found and expected to be better than if there were no partnerships present (Coulshed & Orme, 2006).

The current policies of the government lay emphasis on three way partnerships between the social care providers, the health care providers and the users of the services. There also is an agreement that in what ways the service should be provided to the users of the services. The providers of the service are also determined (Crawford, 2007). Community development, joint employment and team work is also seen as an important factor that contributes towards building effective partnerships that are a need of today's world and ...