COMMUNICATION IN HEALTH

AND SOCIAL CARE

Lenovo
[COMPANY NAME]  [Company address]
Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................2

1.1Apply of relevant theories of communication in health and social care...............................2

1.2 Use communication skills in health and social care contexts..............................................3

1.3 Review methods of dealing with inappropriate interpersonal communication between

individuals in health and social care setting...............................................................................4

1.4 Analyze the use of strategies to support users of health and social care with specific
communication needs.................................................................................................................5

LO2.1. Explain how the communication process is influenced by values and cultural factors.5

LO2.2 Explain how legislation, charters and codes of practice impact on the communication
process in health and social care................................................................................................6

LO2.3 Analyse the effectiveness of organisational systems and policies in promoting good
practice in communication.........................................................................................................7

LO2.4 Suggest ways of improving the communication process in a health and social care
setting.........................................................................................................................................8

Conclusion:................................................................................................................................9

Reference:..................................................................................................................................9
Introduction: Communication paly the vital role in the health and social care organization.
In this report all the aspects of communication for social worker is discussed. In the report
different theories, problems and strategies are discussed with the case. With the solution of
the practical case help to clarify the topic to everyone and the suggestions also add extra
significance in the report. In the assignment all the aspects of communication with the
intention of serving patients at every way.

1.1Apply of relevant theories of communication in health and social care

In the health care implementation of different theories help to realize the framework for the
communication problem for a certain case (Wood, 2011). Application of different theories
help to make the solution of the case more reliable and valid as theories are scientific and
objectify to the fact. In the application of the theories proper service of the clients is always
come first. In the case of the Robert I will apply different theories.
Psychodynamic theory: In this theory significant ground of the communication is explained
which is very important in the health care sector (Cournoyer, 2013). In the case of Robert
social workers cannot help because they cannot get his inner feelings and his experience. All
this things are explored in this theory. According to the theory Robert has two life like
internal and external and this influence him to take service but unfortunately he did not get
help from the authority. This will the change the view of the other homeless people against
the homeless shelter and primary health care.
Behaviourist theory: As a homeless person Robert has his own point of view which is
developed on the basis of the response of the social workers and some other specific things.
On the basis of the theory volunteers of the homeless shelter have choose their language on
the basis of the behaviour of Robert. They have to think about the present situation of Robert
and the incidents which may happen in future.
Humanistic theory: On the basis of the theory of humanistic, homeless shelter has to give
importance on ignoring behaviour of Robert. Homeless shelter has to think about all the
homeless people along with person cantered way to provide better service. Under the theory
Robert should be given liberty too direct himself and volunteer has to be more open with
homeless people.
Cognitive theory: on the basis of the cognitive theory, instant solution of the problem is
given importance (Bandura, 2001). In the case of Robert, if the homeless shelter and the
primary health care organization assist him instantly, today he will not be death as he get
mental support from his society. After his death the program of increasing the awareness of
the needs of the homeless people is done on the basis of the cognitive theory. This will
increase psychological strength among the homeless people like Robert.

1.2 Use communication skills in health and social care contexts

Volunteers of the homeless shelter have different ways to communicate with the homeless
people, police and other social care organization like verbal or non-verbal, and listening the
voice of others and communicate in written way (Reeves, Lewin, Espin & Zwarenstein,
2011). Without proper communication providing effective service cannot be possible.
Verbal communication: Face to face conversation with the homeless people like Robert will
give strength to live. Volunteers may be busy with their own work and at that time they have
to communicate by telephone. Verbal communication is very important for the primary health
worker to get the idea of the service user. With the verbal communication collecting
information and decision making will be easy for the social worker as they can realise
feelings of the homeless people like Robert.
Non-verbal communication: In providing service to the helpless people like Robert non-
verbal communication is not very effective as social workers will not get clear idea of the
message of the homeless people. At the time of verbal communication, non-verbal
communication help to give proper message to the volunteers. Robert could aware the people
of the society with the pictures and symbols of their measuring life.
Written communication: To communicate with the voluntary homeless shelter and primary
health service organization in a formal way written communication is effective (Hargie,
Morrow & Woodman, 2000). Robert could explain his situation clearly in a written format.
Housing and care agencies can communicate in a written way.
On the basis of the case communication gap among housing and social services caused the
life of Robert. Minimum support of the social organizations will motivate him to keep faith in
his life. Communication for the homeless people like Robert is important to give their
message to the authority and responsible authority has to carefully listen to them and the
problem of them should be recorded. On the basis of the information they have work to solve
the problem. Poor practise of listening to others will make the death like Robert. To find the
best solution for the homeless people they have to negotiate and proper communication
increase advocacy, counselling so homeless people will not be depressed like Robert. At the
end of social care organizations have to response at the time of their needs to make them
positive about their life.

1.3 Review methods of dealing with inappropriate interpersonal

communication between individuals in health and social care setting.
Most of the time effective communication largely depends on the interpersonal skills of the
communicator. (Haggerty & others, 2003) Social workers have to be better communicator to
deal in a proper way with the service user. Most of the time service user do not have the
knowledge of the way of communication. But at the time of providing service social workers
have to control their mind to face any unexpected situation.
Homeless people will be depressed and can misbehave with volunteer and they can be
arrogant as one of their representative Robert is death because of the negligence of the
homeless shelter and primary care department so they may not behave in a decent way. Social
workers has to be calm at the time of communicating with the homeless people. At the time
of communication they have to concern about their language. They should try to avoid any
type of misunderstanding with the homeless people. They should try to avoid their
inactiveness by focusing their recent activities.
By analysing the case I have found that voice of Robert was ignored like every other
homeless people and they did not try realise the sufferings of the homeless people that ends at
the death of Robert. So we can see the cost of the misinterpretation of the message from the
case of Robert.
In the death of Robert the two party shelter and social care will blame one another and this
will breach their trust and their inactivity breach the trust of the general people as they did not
get their expected help and support from them. Their internal clash will bring their inactivity
into the light.
Homeless shelter and primary health care workers had to concentrate to the voice of Robert
to understand his problem as it was related to the decision making. At the time of
communication self-concept and self-esteem should keep detached. Most of the homeless
people are individuals and they do not have power to get help by abusing their self-image or
power. So at the time providing service volunteers have to get them out from the
stereotyping.
Interpersonal values, believes, prejudice and stress influence the communication (Bowling,
2014). For example many people keep that people are responsible for their own condition. At
the time of stress they do not concentrate to the speech of others. At the end of all knowledge
is also responsible for inappropriate communication. So social worker should try their best to
avoid all these problems to be an effective social worker.

1.4 Analyze the use of strategies to support users of health and social care
with specific communication needs.
On the basis of the situation social workers have to select strategy to communicate with the
service user. Proper communication influence the effectiveness of the service as people are
influenced only by the way of communication (Lamb & Kling, 2003). On the basis of the
case Robert is death because of the strategy of communicating with the homeless people. The
strategies which can be used by the volunteer of the homeless shelter in future.
Alternative language: Most of the time homeless people come from different country most
of them are not expert in English. To communicate with those homeless people knowing their
language is very important. To communicate with them volunteer can take help by exercising
different languages like Arabic, French, Spanish, etc. and this will make them comfortable.
The task of advocating will also easy for the volunteer. On the other hand sign language can
be used for those who are unable to speak. Most of the homeless people are depressed, they
can be motivated by singing and dancing with them.
Environmental condition: For the social care organization doing the right thing at the right
time is very important (Prati & Pietrantoni, 2009). Social workers have to realize the
environment, mode and motive of the service users. Most of the time acceptance of the
message depends on all these things. In the recent situation homeless shelter has to give their
message in a positive way. Like any other person of UK homeless people should also be
given equal opportunity to get health care and social care organizations have to give this
message to them.
Social organizations related to the homeless people can use many other strategy but in the
view of mine these two are must at the recent situation.
LO2.1. Explain how the communication process is influenced by values and
cultural factors
National Health Service works to ensure social service for all the citizen. This organization
works with different people of the country. In this single country, there is different types of
people with different mentality. At the time of providing service, social workers have to
concern about the differences of culture. For this reason at the time providing service they
have to think about possible mentality on the basis of age, sex, sexuality, gender and
education of the service user (Anderson & others, 2006). All these differences affect in the
communication with each other.
According to the case Alice is expected to be treated in a respected way. At the first time she
did not feel secure to take help from Don as he is a male. As usual most of the women shy to
share their problems with male and males do not like to take help from female and it is a
common culture of our society. At this position it is important to treat the clients by the
person of their own gender. Here Meiling play the role to work for Alice. Alice became easy
with Meiling and she feel comfortable with her.
Alice’s was depressed and she could not trust anyone. For that reason she did not allow Don
and Meiling to enter in her house. So the cannot communicate with her to know her situation
properly. With the change of age people’s mind become changed and physical ability also
decreased. But loosing of strength depends on the gender and environment and ethnicity of
client. Because of the negligence of her neighbours, she cannot trust anyone now.
Cooperativeness of the people of the society influence patients to express their feelings freely
(Emmons & Rollnick, 2001). The other most important things in the social care of Alice are
her education and social class. Most of the time people get their first education from their
family. Alice’s life was full of her mother. She did not get the education to overcome stress
and how to be friendly. The social class of Alice’s was not so high but at the position Alice
they are better her that’s why she was frightened to share her problems with them.
Meiling could not close to Alice if she had shown negligence and she feel secure to be with
her and she tolerate all the problems in the house of Alice. Mileing become the trusted person
of Alice because of her non-discretionary manner of her.
LO2.2 Explain how legislation, charters and codes of practice impact on
the communication process in health and social care
Social workers use different tools and technics on the basis of the situation to make the
communication effective. But government has to control the communication process by
implementing different act to ensure safety for the service user (Gibson, Martin & Singer,
2004).
The most important act in the communication sector is Data Protection Act where personal
data of the public has to be controlled in responsible manner. Like many other patient Alice
also conscious about her reputation in the society. Untidy situation of her home should not be
disclosed in the society according to the Act. At the time of staying with Alice Meiling will
get different types of sensitive information. For the cure of Alice, she has to collect them but
she must handle those data very carefully. For the data protestation every social workers have
to be trained on safety and protection of data. Social workers like Don and Meiling have to
write down data in a professional manner and they cannot disclose data without permission of
Alice as they are bound to the Data Privacy Act 1998. This data protection act make the
communication way smooth as patient can talk with the social worker freely as they are
bound to law to protect their information.
For the patient like Alice the Equality Act 2010 is also important as this type of patients are
vulnerable. According to the act all the patients should be treated equally and with dignity.
For this reason Don and Meilin has to show respect of the decision of Alice. For example
they cannot force her to enter in her house. They thought about her mental situation and for
her comfort they take time in communicating with Alice. In service takers. It means Alice
will be treated with due dignity and service should be according to her comfort. Don and
Meiling has think about her bad experience of losing her mother. To maintain equality social
workers like Don and Meiling have to think again and again to maintain the act.
Alice will not give them permission to enter in her home if they do not treat her well. To
communicate with their patient they have to think different way to maintain regular
communication (Hanseth & Aanestad, 2003). At the end of all it can be said that all the social
workers have to ethical and they must protect the rights of their patients to make them
comfortable in communication.
LO2.3 Analyse the effectiveness of organisational systems and policies in
promoting good practice in communication
Most of the time effectiveness of the communication within the social care organization
depends on the policy and procedures of the organization (Kushniruk & Borycki, 2008). For
example social workers like Don and Meiling are governed by the code of conduct of their
organization. On the basis of the case Meiling can take her time to communicate with her
patient and this will increase her confidence in providing service.
On the basis of the policy of the housing office, all the officers have the moto to serve their
clients at any way. They take steps at any time on the basis of the compliance or at the time
they informed. For the wellbeing of their clients they communicate with the local authority to
help Alice. In the policy of the housing authority mainly problems will be tried to be solved
by the low level officers. If they are unable to get help from the local authority then they will
discuss this matter with their boss.
On the basis of the case we have found the local authority related to the social work. They
mainly help the extremely helpless people. They do not handle all the cases as there so many
people who needs social service (Miller, 2005). At first they any of their officer for justifying
the situation of the patient. In this case Meiling went to visit the situation of Alice with Don.
On the basis of the report of her authority take decision to support the Alice. She has the right
to communicate Alice on the basis of the policy of local service authority.
Because of the policy of the local social service authority, providing service to the patient
take long time and this may cause hazard in the health of the patient. Here they can respond
to the phone call of the Don rather than his boss. To make the communication process more
rapid for they can use computer and online system to get update news of their patient. If local
health care authority contact with phone, they may overcome many hazardous situation by
taking proper steps. At the end of all it can be said that policy of the social are organizations
should importance on developing appropriate and congenial system with the intention of
serving the helpless persons.

LO2.4 Suggest ways of improving the communication process in a health

and social care setting
Performance of the health and social care depends on the proper communication of the
organization (Street Jr, Gordon & Haidet, 2007). In the case of Alice, safeguarding authority
respond literally slow than expected. This may damage her body and mentally she can
become sicker. So here I have found some problem to the communication system of the local
safeguarding authority and on the basis of it here is given some of the steps for improvement.
 To provide effective social service, local safeguarding authority must develop a
communication system. There should be a common telephone line where general
people can contact for help and safeguarding authority will respond at any time.
 Safeguarding team must recruit more field officers to provide rapid response and
staffs must be train up to become more effective and efficient (Wanzer, Booth-
Butterfield & Booth-Butterfield, 2005).
 It is time worthy to command any one face to face so safeguarding authority can use
internet or telephone to be connected and to give command.
 Meiling should keep the daily progress of Alice by making file in the system so she
feedback of her service. Here we have found that she has no future plan and her
organization has not specific communication of communication so they should have
think of where to start and how to start.
 For Don he also has no plan to communication and maybe he has some problem in
communication so he should think on it.
 There should be common database which can be used by all the social workers of the
social organization.
 Local safe guarding authority should influence local people to communicate with
them for any help. The culture of the organization should developed as motive of
helping people.

Conclusion: The report is completed by showing different sides of the communication. By

analysing the case we found the problem of communication of the social organization. These
organizations have to work on those problems to ensure better service to all the people of the
society. Beside all these they have to think of the communication system to maintain
effective support to the patients. In the end of all I have provided recommendation for
developing communication in the organization with the intention of care.

Reference:
1. Anderson, G. F., Frogner, B. K., Johns, R. A. and Reinhardt, U. E. (2006). Health care
spending and use of information technology in OECD countries.Health Affairs, 25(3),
819-831.
2. Bandura, A. (2001). Social cognitive theory: An agentic perspective. Annual review
of psychology, 52(1), 1-26.
3. Bowling, A. (2014). Research methods in health: investigating health and health
services. McGraw-Hill Education (UK).
4. Cournoyer, B. (2013). The social work skills workbook. Cengage Learning.
5. Emmons, K. M. and Rollnick, S. (2001). Motivational interviewing in health care
settings: opportunities and limitations. American journal of preventive
medicine,20(1), 68-74.
6. Gibson, J. L., Martin, D. K. and Singer, P. A. (2004). Setting priorities in health care
organizations: criteria, processes, and parameters of success. BMC Health Services
Research, 4(1), 25.
7. Haggerty, J. L., Reid, R. J., Freeman, G. K., Starfield, B. H., Adair, C. E. and
McKendry, R. (2003). Continuity of care: a multidisciplinary review. BMJ: British
Medical Journal, 327(7425), 1219.
8. Hanseth, O. and Aanestad, M. (2003). Design as bootstrapping. On the evolution of
ICT networks in health care. Methods of information in medicine, 42(4), 384-391.
9. Hargie, O. D., Morrow, N. C. and Woodman, C. (2000). Pharmacists’ evaluation of
key communication skills in practice. Patient Education and Counseling, 39(1), 61-
70.
10. Kamel Boulos, M. N. and Wheeler, S. (2007). The emerging Web 2.0 social software:
an enabling suite of sociable technologies in health and health care
education1. Health Information and Libraries Journal, 24(1), 2-23.
11. Kushniruk, A. W. and Borycki, E. (2008). Human, social, and organizational aspects
of health information systems. Hershey: Medical Information Science Reference.
12. Lamb, R. and Kling, R. (2003). Reconceptualizing users as social actors in
information systems research. MIS quarterly, 197-236.
13. Miller, K. (2005). Communication theories: Perspectives, processes, and contexts.
McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages.
14. Prati, G. and Pietrantoni, L. (2009). Optimism, social support, and coping strategies as
factors contributing to posttraumatic growth: A meta-analysis. Journal of Loss and
Trauma, 14(5), 364-388.
15. Reeves, S., Lewin, S., Espin, and Zwarenstein, M. (2011). Interprofessional
teamwork for health and social care (Vol. 8). John Wiley & Sons.
16. Street Jr, R. L., Gordon, H. and Haidet, P. (2007). Physicians’ communication and
perceptions of patients: is it how they look, how they talk, or is it just the
doctor?. Social science and medicine, 65(3), 586-598..
17. Wanzer, M., Booth-Butterfield, M. and Booth-Butterfield, S. (2005). “If we didn't use
humor, we'd cry”: Humorous coping communication in health care settings.Journal of
health communication, 10(2), 105-125.
18. Wood, J. (2011). Communication in our lives. Cengage Learning.