Unit 3 Communication Skills in HSC Assignment

Introduction

Effective communication between the service user and care provider is essential in assessment of the needs of the user and delivering care plan as per the needs in order to yield the best possible satisfaction to the service user. Thus unit 3 communication skills in HSC assignment study basically aims to discuss the process of communication in context of the care services in a particular health care setting and discussing the case of the patients with respect to problems in the communication leading to non effective provision of care in health and social care setting at UK. Also the light is thrown on improving communication process in care services.

Lo 1 use of communication skills in health and social care

1.1 Relevant theories of communication

Effective communication is where the intended or desired meaning is exchanged between the speaker and the receiver.

Various theories are applicable to communications in health and social care as:

• Behaviorist theories: the behavior of any individual is a result of the stimuli in the environment and learning or experiences gathered from various incidents and happenings around him. As seen with case study of Anna who was unable to move and had to wait for almost four hours outside the emergency ward and later the doctor without seeing medical history said that she is unable to move due to being drunk and did not called a nurse to support her, she was highly disappointed with the care provisions and thus this led to development of a negative feeling towards that hospital services and doctor.
• Cognitive theories: it is based on the pattern of mental process in the individual and describes that learning can take place at any point of life of an individual if the individual is capable of understanding things. Thus in health and social care, the workers must understand and learn that their behavior towards the patient should be to the comfort level of the patient in order to allow the patient to elaborate his needs and incidents related thus allowing better service delivery and resulting satisfaction.
• Social learning: It elaborates the use of role model and other influencing groups in the society like family group from which the individual learning takes place (Dainton et al, 2011). In case study of Anna, doctor must improve in attitude and care service provision by following a good doctor as role model.

1.2 Using communication skills in health and social care

In the effective delivery of care services in Health and Social Care, the communication skills that are needed include oral or verbal communication, face or lip reading, understanding of the body language of patients, sign language in case of deaf, questioning in order to understand the problem or need, etc. I think for the effective care services, the health care worker must be well capable of understanding what the service users want to convey, understand their needs, should be interested in listening to service user,  decision making  use of skills in verbal and non verbal communications and must design care plan or services on the basis of the overall analysis followed by checking effectiveness of care plan in meeting the needs of service user (Rothwell et al, 2011). I feel that the in case of Anna, the doctor did not receive well what the patient wanted to convey and was in some hurry or stressed out. Also the doctor was poor at communication skills like understanding of the pain and body language of Anna who couldn’t speak due to stroke and thus without examination or asking for medical history or the incident from Paul led concluding of Anna as being drunk. Thus due to ineffective communication skills in doctor, it led to development of negative feeling in Anna and Paul about the hospital services and the doctor in the case. I believe that the doctor should have rather focused on understanding of the body language of Anna who was in pain, asking for medical history from Paul and calling a nurse to help the patient in order to improve the comfort level of patient and effective care delivery.

1.3 Inappropriate interpersonal communication between individuals

Interpersonal communication involves the exchange of words, gestures, etc between the service user like Anna and the care provider or doctor in the case. The inappropriate handling of the patient at emergency ward led to dissatisfaction in Anna and Paul over care services. The various methods for monitoring of the interpersonal communication in the health and social care include:

• Oral feedback from service users: about the services provided by the care provider or practitioner is valuable input in improving the inappropriate handling of communication with service users (Trenholm et al, 2013).
• Written feedback forms: available on the reception areas of the care organization or available online can help to ensure good behavior with service users and effective service provisions.
• Self reflection: is where the care workers are conscious and consider changes based on client or employer feedbacks
• Cameras at workplace: can help in dealing with problems of inappropriate communication with service users.

I believe these methods can be helpful in checking the inappropriate interpersonal communication in the care organization.

1.4 Strategies used to support the users

The most important aspect of contract in communication in health and social care includes the removal of any kind of barriers in communication with the service user. The most important aspect in communication includes providing the empathy or comfort to the service user and listening in order to understand the care needs effectively. However various kinds of supports may be needed in order to allow proper communication between the care provider and the user. In case of disability of the individuals at care or inability to express due support must be provided by the care workers and thus they may be good at lip or face reading, understanding gestures, making use of sign language and other forms of non verbal communication. In case of the patient at care is visually impaired, making provisions for glasses, magnification devices and enabling touch signals in case of blind patients (Robbins et al, 2011). British Sign Language is an important support in case of the service user’s being deaf or affected by any kind of hearing impairments by making patients understand through use of face, hands and body. Also people with various cultures or languages can be communicated in care delivery process through making use of pictures, signs, etc or appointing translators as this helps in understanding and making care delivery as per needs of the service users. Inability to speak as in case of Anna who was stuck with stroke requires doctor to understand the body language and gestures as pain through observation. I think that also doctor could have listened to Paul and asked for medical history from Paul and must have called nurse to improve the comfort level of the patient who went wet due to leaking bladder. I believe that support to users is important in making effective need assessment and care delivery in health and social care.

Lo 2 various factors influencing communication process

2.1 values and cultural factors’ influence on communication process

The culture could be detailed as a sum of ideas, norms, beliefs, rituals and the overall behavioral patterns of people in the society and transfers from one to next generation through parents, teachers, etc (Roy et al, 2010). In health and social care, it is the responsibility of the care workers to work with service users with different cultures and enable the barriers in effective communications and service delivery by respecting their cultural values. In case the care provider is unable to understand the culture of the service user, he must appoint a translator or make use of pictures or graphical representations to enable communication with user. Violation of cultures is in no case acceptable and leads to distress as in case of the mentee in the case who was unable to follow the culture of health and social care organization in delivering care and rather than providing support to the Arab patient left him on floor with the sick and wet. I think that Mentee should have respected the Arab patient’s urgency asking for bowl and bed pan and must be aware of working responsibilities in health and social care while delivering care and should learn to communicate with the patient in pleasant manner and due empathy. Also I believe the mentor should have oriented the new mentee about the culture of the organization and ways of dealing with cultural diversity in the care organization.

2.2 legislations, charters and codes of practice impact communication process

Various laws are formulated by the government in order to regulate and control the working and life of the people in the country and legislations are applied to almost all the aspects of working of individuals in the country. As in health and social care, various laws apply to the practice and codes of practice imply the good conduct of employees in delivering care needs of service users.

Data protection act, 1998: entails the confidentiality policy or keeping up the privacy of the patient  information knowledge  in health and social care services. Thus care workers should not provide patient information to anyone unless consent is received from the patient. This impacts the communications by respecting the confidentiality of information (Turno, 2010).

Anti discrimination acts: is consisting of various laws such as

• Sex Discrimination Act
• Race Relations Act 
• Disability discrimination Act

In health and social care, the care users or any other shall not be discriminated on the basis of caste, sex, race, age, religion, disability, etc and this affects the communication process through putting a bar on words, face expressions, signs, comments, etc pointing to any discrimination. As seen in the case of new mentee, who was not respecting the disability of the Arab patient stuck with Hysterectomy and did not provide due support and rather shouted on the patient (Barnlund et al, 2013).

Duty of care: implies that in health and social care, providing support to the service user is utmost priority of the care worker and in the case of new mentee who left the patient with sick on the floor to the nurse in-charge asking for a support staff, rather than helping him to rise to the chair and thus being non responsive to her responsibilities as care worker

2.3 effectiveness of organizational systems and policies in promoting good practice

All the care organizations must have clearly defined principles and strict compliance with the duties and responsibilities as care workers must be ensures in order to provide satisfactory services to the users. The hospital or organization systems must be capable of ensuring the governance of policies and principles in order to ensure the rights and interests of both the care users and car workers. Care organization must be capable of developing a culture towards compliances of laws, principles and policies in order to promote good practice in health and social care and safeguard the rights and interests of service users (Anon, 2014). Various methods can be used in the organization such as:

• Annual appraisals: include one to one interviews with the care workers in an organization and ensuring the compliance with the laws and policies thus ensuring good and safe practice.
• Inspections or checks: can help in making checks at any time in the organization.
• Monitoring services: through the cameras at various points in the organization can help in promoting good practice and behaviors of staff being monitored constantly.
• Training of staff: can help to bridge the gaps between actual and desired performance as may be clear from observation or annual appraisals.
• Feedback or complaints from service users: should be impartial and allowing service user to report without having fear of the authority or position of the service provider.

I think organizations can promote and ensure the good practice as according to codes and care standards as was done in the case of new mentee who misbehaved and did not respect the disability and support needs of Arab patient but the incident could have stopped from occurrence through camera monitoring. Thus mentor must provide training and orientation to the mentee before allowing any practice as it creates risks for the service users.

2.4 suggest ways to improve communication process

In order to improve the communication in health and care delivery systems various methods must be used by the organization and the efforts of the care workers are essential in the process.

Training on non verbal communications: must be provided by the care organization in order to make the care providers well at understanding the body language, face expressions and making use of sign language, etc. British Sign Language which makes use of hands and body movements in communications with deaf or hearing impaired service users can be a valuable input in improving the communications in care services (Sultana, 2013).

Support provisions: in the care organizations are a must in order to improve communication like availability of

• Translators: in order to remove culture or language barriers between the care user and the care providers.
• Provision of glasses: or other magnification devices in case of vision impairments in service users
• Graphical representation: devices can help in communication with the clients from various cultural backgrounds, mentally impaired or unable to speak or understand

Understanding of legislations: like confidentiality of client information, respecting the culture, religion, sex, age, language, disability of the patient or service user can help in improvement of communications with the service users.

Conclusion

By undertaking the study on the communication process in the care organizations, it is evident that the communication effectiveness is crucial in delivery of appropriate service as per understanding of the needs of the clients or service users in order to yield best satisfaction. Also the laws and policies that apply to the field must be well understood by the care provider and organization must improve the practice through making use of training, monitoring and appraisals. Thus care organizations must place emphasis on improving the communications with the service users.

References 

Dainton, M.; Elain D. Zellei; et al. (2011). Applying Communication Theory for Professional Life (PDF). Sage Publications. pp. 247-59
Rothwell, J. Dan. (2015) "In the Company of Others: an introduction to communication." 3rd Edition, New York, NY; Oxford University Press, PP 11-15.
Trenholm, S.; Jensen, .r (2013). Interpersonal Communication Seventh Edition. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 360–361.
Robbins, S., Judge, T., Millett, B., & Boyle, M. (2011).  Organization Behavior . 6th ed. 
Turno, R. (2010) Continuing development (online) available at http://www.slideshare.net/irishmeolynturno/health-and-social-care last accessed on 11 July 2016
Barnlund, D. C. (2008). A transactional model of communication. In. C. D. Mortensen (Eds.), Communication theory (2nd ed.,). New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction. pp47-57
Sultana, F. (2013) Communication (online) available at https://prezi.com/mkarqbpflojz/13-communication/ last accessed on 12 July 2016.
Anon, m. (2014) ensure your actions reduce risks to health and safety (online) available at http://c/Users/w7/Downloads/Health%20and%20Safety%20in%20the%20workplace.pdf last accessed on 12 July 2016