Unit 3 Assignment on Health and Social Care VSO

Program	Diploma in Health and Social Care
Unit Number and Title	Unit 3 Health and Social Care VSO
QFC Level	Level 5

Introduction

Assignment on health and social care VSO report explains the influences on the health and Social Care organisations with reference to the Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) given in the case study. It covers the concepts of functions of the organisations and also discusses the role of leadership within the organisations. The assignment is divided into three sections where in one section presentation has been made for discussing the influences of external factors on VSO, the second section is about the interview conducted with the colleague about his experiences in another industry and then comparing it to the own experiences.

The last section contains the discussion about the role of leadership in the Health and Social care organisations which will be discussed among the group of three colleagues.

Volunteer Service Overseas

Task 1

Power Point Presentation

Task 2

Introduction

An interview has been conducted with a colleague, James who has work experience of a senior care worker for the people who are suffering from Dementia. This role is concerned with the direct care needs which are needed by the patients. The duties of a senior care worker include helping the service user for fulfilling their daily routine needs, monitoring their health needs and providing them independent life. This task is the reflection of the experience of a colleague by interviewing him. The main motive of this task is to understand the impact of structures and cultures of the organisations on the service deliveries in the Health and Social care organisations (Nilsson, et al., 2016).

James worked for Age UK which is a social care organisation for people suffering from Dementia. From his experiences it is known that there are different types of Organisational structures and Age UK is a not for Profit organisation. Structure of an organisation creates the culture of the organisation which determines the working style of management, responsibilities of workers and both the culture and structure of the organisation are linked to each other (Dearnaley, 2014). Not for profit organisation structure basically includes two categories of organisation, one is Voluntary organisations and other is social enterprises. Age UK is a special enterprise which has set objectives by the government and its business is objected to maximise the profits of the stakeholders which includes the employees and the service users. Age UK provides services to the service users and make them capable of living their quality life (Dearnaley, 2014).

In Voluntary Service Organisation (VSO), groups and individuals are involved at their own will of providing services to the communities. They function with the help of grants by the government or charities but not all the fund come from these sources. People work in this organisation because of their choices to work for saving people’s life or to make it better. The organisation work for HIV/ AIDS suffering people and aims at providing quality life to them (vsointernational, 2016).

James, as a senior care worker, experienced that communication and leadership is important to handle the activities at a social care organisation. Communication plays a vital role in the development of teamwork in the Health and Social care organisations. It helps in building teams which work together by collaborating their efforts to provide quality life to the Dementia suffering people. Communication improves the work quality of the team and also helps in building the personality of an individual. If effective communication is established between the team members, it helps in reducing the conflicts between them and also reduces stress. He also believes that the role of work placements at Health and Social care organisations helps in the Personal and Professional development of an individual (Bartol & Zhang, 2010).

On the contrary, the Volunteering organisations work on the principle of services at their own will where they participate and communicate with each other in order to collaborate their efforts and develop effective service deliveries for making the lives of people suffering with AIDS/ HIV. In VSO, Volunteers are sent to different areas where the help is needed and the difference is made in their lives. This organisation provides an opportunity to different people to use their skills and knowledge, also the experience to create a long lasting impact on the life of different people who are in need of help. Volunteers create energy and inspiration among the people and use their  employability skills  to provide healthcare and education to people for different diseases and health related matters (McAuley, 2012).

While working in Age UK, James has experienced that there are different theories which are related to the groups in health and social care. It includes individual theories and Group behaviour theories. Individual theories are motivation theories which help in motivating the employees working in the organisation (McAuley, 2012). Age UK uses they are motivated through the Hygiene motivation theory where there are two factors Hygiene and motivation factors. Hygiene factors are those which prevents the employees from getting motivated like supervision, work conditions or salary and motivation factors are those which leads to satisfaction like recognition in the organisation, responsibilities and growth Group behaviour theories are adopted in the form of team building where the Belbin team roles are followed in order to achieve the objectives of the team. Belbin team roles is a model of different team roles in a team which work together to accomplish a task. It has action oriented roles, people oriented roles and cerebral roles. These roles are shown in the image below (belbin.com, 2016).

In VSO, socialisation and group think are the group behaviour theories which help in forming the unanimity in the people of a group which helps in achieving the common aims and objectives. The people who are experienced and skilled get together at their own will and socialise with each other which also attracts more people to join the organisation. Here the personality of individuals attract others to join the organisations and Maslow Motivation theory is used for motivation in employees in which there are stages of motivation. It shows that if an employee’s reaches one stage of motivation, he longs for the next stage and that is how he is motivated by working in the organisation (McLeod, 2016).

James experienced that in Age UK a combination of Power and Role culture is followed where a leader handles the employees of the organisation and directs them to work. Here, the leader controls and holds the power. Here, individuals know about their jobs and they report to their leader. All the employees are entitled with a specific job matching their positions and skills (O’Reilly & Brennan, 2010).

Whereas in VSO, I experienced that person culture is followed which focus on people and rely on the skills and knowledge of the employees of the organisation who are the volunteers. Here, the volunteers get an opportunity to develop their skills and talents and can develop themselves professionally (Power, 2010).

It can be concluded that from the interview it is known that the structures and cultures followed in the organisations are different and so, the activities and style of working are different in them. They have different motivation techniques and the behaviour theories are different.

Task 3

Executive Summary

The main challenge of the Health and Social Care organisations is to improve the quality of the care provided to the service users. For this, the culture of the organisation should be shaped in a way which supports the delivery of health care services. It can be done through effective leadership. Leadership directs the employees and aligns the efforts of everyone to achieve quality work and the common goals of the organisation. It clears the vision to the employees and helps in gaining their commitment to achieve the goals (McAuley, 2012).

Effective leadership influences the culture of the organisation and helps it to face the cultural changes. Leadership is an important element in the high quality performance of an organisation. Passionate leadership improves the quality of care, safety and services and resolves the issues which are with the team or the organisation. For e.g. While working in Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), there were differences in the views of different volunteers for communicating with the patients suffering from AIDS/ HIV. As set of people were in the favour of personally meeting the patients in the hospitals while others were in the favour of inviting them to a common place. A leader solved the conflicts over here by reaching a common solution where camps are organised in the hospitals for the patients (Power, 2010).

Leadership is a big responsibility in the health and social care organisations. They contribute to the success of the organisation and also benefit the service users. They develop  business strategy  through which most effective care can be delivered. They create the environment in the organisation which supports in making good decisions, in the favour of care users. VSO is able to travel and arrange vaccinations, medicines and equipments for taking care of the service users because of efficient leadership. The volunteers work together and feel proud in working and achieving the common goals (vsointernational, 2016).

Leader guiding the Team members: The leaders develop the volunteers and make and employee fit for providing the services. A leader closely monitors every employee and answers the questions. He arranges training sessions for the volunteers and the language classes to provide effective care to all the patients so that the language barrier cannot hamper the quality of care provided to the care users. Leaders care for the safety and wellbeing of the volunteers and develop their future (vsointernational, 2016).

Health care organisation is complex and difficult to manage because a balance has to be maintained between different issues and programs. A leader in the Health and social care organisation should have skills, knowledge and competence so that the organisation can achieve what it expects. A leader uses the scarce resources in the best possible way so that maximum output can be gained. It makes sure that the needs of the staff can be met by using the limited resources and the ultimate needs of the service users can be met. It increases the satisfaction among the care service users. It is seen that Volunteer Service Overseas (VSO) uses Person Culture where people plays an important role while taking up the decisions and managing the services (Power, 2010). For leadership development which is significant for health care, NHS England has invested in a huge amount in a leadership academy so that leadership capabilities can be developed among the service care providers. There are many methods which can be used to enhance the leadership capabilities like job rotation, mentoring, coaching, 360 degree feedback, etc. (Bartol & Zhang, 2010).

From the above discussion it can be concluded that leadership contributes to the success of organisation which helps in providing better care to the patients.

Group Discussion

Below given is the group discussion among 3 colleagues regards to the executive summary above:

• A: Leadership is one of the most significant aspects of corporate structures and cultures. Leadership is the action of leading people for achieving challenging goals of an organisation.
• B: It is seen that Leadership is not only important in the profit making organisations but also in non profit making organisations like the Health and social care organisations where health services and care is to be provided to the service users.
• C: Yes, true. Leadership in the healthy and social care organisations bring quality in the services provided to the patients or service users which improve the health and life of the service users.
• B: I am happy that the vision for excellent care and support are explained in the White Paper, Caring for Our Future which established strong support in the social care sector. It describes an influence of leadership on the quality of care to the individuals.
• A: The population is ageing and so the demand of care services is on rise which becomes difficult to manage without an effective leadership. It is important to manage the change in the need of care which can be managed through strong leadership.
• B: But the main point is that how strong leaders are created in the Health and Social care sector and how the services are improved through good and effective leadership.
• A: Good leaders can be created through skills  informantion and knowledge  and most importantly experience which come through years of practice. Voluntary Service Overseas (VOS) have many volunteers who are from different fields and have experience in different sectors. They use their skills and knowledge in the accomplishment of its main goal which is providing quality services to the service users.
• C: A leader initiates action in the organisation and communicates the plans and policies to the rest of the team and make sure that each role is defined to each member of the team. He not only defines the roles but also motivates them to work harder for the achievement of their goals and satisfaction of the service users.
• B: Also, he provides guidance to the team members and solves complex situations arising between them.
• C: Leader develops winning strategies and executes them with the help of people. He builds the capabilities and competencies of the workers by guiding them which ultimately benefits the organisation.
• A: I agree with the above points, and would like to conclude that leadership is full of challenges but plays a major role in achieving the goals and objectives of the health and social care organisation which are related to the excellent quality of services to the care users.

Conclusion

It can be concluded that Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) attracts no. of volunteers for the purpose of delivery care services to the users and there are many external factors which affects its operations. It is also made clear from the experiences of a colleague that very organisation has different structure and culture which defines its style of operations and leadership style. Leadership plays a major role in the Health and Social care organisations and it has been explained in the last section of the report.

References

Bartol, K. M., & Zhang, X. (2010). Linking Empowering Leadership and Employee Creativity: The Influence of Psychological Empowerment, Intrinsic Motivation, and Creative Process Engagement. Academy of Management
Journal .
belbin.com. (2016). belbin team roles. Retrieved 09 28, 2016, from http://www.belbin.com/about/belbin-team-roles/
Dearnaley, P. 2014, "Competitive advantage in the new social care marketplace: a new theoretical perspective", Housing, Care and Support, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 5-15.
McAuley, J. 2012, "Volunteering to save lives", The practising midwife, vol. 15, no. 11, pp. 29.
McLeod, S. (2016). Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Retrieved 09 28, 2016, from http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html
Nilsson, L., Eriksén, S. & Borg, C. 2016, "The influence of social challenges when implementing information systems in a Swedish health?care organisation", Journal of Nursing Management, vol. 24, no. 6, pp. 789-797.O’Reilly, M., & Brennan, E. (2010). Leadership styles & Team roles. Retrieved 07 04, 2016, from http://www.ucd.ie/t4cms/cdc%20-%20cms%20-%20teamwork%20and%20leadership.pdf
Power, A. (2010). Changing the culture of care. Dementia beyond drugs .
vsointernational. (2016). Why Volunteer VSO. Retrieved 09 28, 2016, from https://www.vsointernational.org/volunteering/why-volunteer-vso