Interprofessional Learning

Interprofessional learning, where several groups of healthcare professionals join together to improve the service of care they provide, is essential for the NHS to break down barriers between professionals. Protectiveness and territorialism amongst the NHS reduces patient care and outcome, staff moral and efficiency as people just won't communicate.

"The application of principles of adult learning to interactive, group-based learning, which relates collaborative learning to collaborative practice within a coherent rationale which is informed by understanding of interpersonal, group, organisational and inter-organisational relations and processes of professionalism" - Barr (2001)

Aims:

• To improve knowledge of the service
• Learn how to better patient care and safety
• Improve patient pathway
• Integrate systems better
• Improve communication and collaboration

How?

Within universities, training days and qualification attainment IPL has greatly impacted interprofessional working outcomes. Modules, lectures and seminars are catered not to specific departments, but for the overall healthcare profession, which creates one universal understanding of what is expected from everyon -this improves set standards for protocol and legislation which everyone adheres to.

Why?

Patients deserve to know that their care is being provided by the best-qualified people for the job, as part of registration, communication and IPW is a fundamental aspect of a healthcare professional's role.

The NHS constitution (2009) has core principles which state:

• To provide a comprehensive service to all
• Access is based on clinical need not financial ability
• Patient centred care and involvement when planning services
• Interprofessional Working
• Accountability

QIPP (Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention) developed by the Department of Health drives to improve quality of care and can reduce £20 billion expenditure by 2015. This can be accomplished by improving how organisations are run, staffed and supplied (and commissioning of these services). To improve how organisations are run, there must be a Organisational Culture which focuses on improving patient care, information sharing and communication between departments and primary and secondary care givers (GP's, Hospitals).

Cases of neglect and mistreatment within the NHS (such as that at Winterbourne View care home, Mid-Staffordshire Foundation Trust and seen through the Keogh and Berwick reports) could have been prevented if professions communicated better; IPL and IPW can prevent neglect like that seen within these cases from ever happening again. IPW can increase the acceptance of whistle-blowing within the NHS - if unacceptable practice is seen, through having better ties between departments, it becomes easier to be able to raise concerns about other's practices.