Working in Partnership in Health and

Social Care

Module 01
Describe ways to improve own
practice in relation to partnership
working

ILO – 3.3
What is Reflective practice?
• Reflective practice is a strategy or approach with a rich history across
several disciplines. Predominantly starting in education and philosophy, the
approach evolved and gained attention in healthcare in the late
20th century to improve patient care and promote continuous professional
development.
• Over time it slowly began to be adopted in social care to help deliver better
person-centred care. Since it spread into professional standards, it has
become more widespread encouraging individuals to reflect on
professional practice with themselves, a colleague, or a team, as a way to
deal with and maintain high levels of pressure within the workplace.
• It allows and encourages teams to share their learning experiences so the
insights that have been discovered and developed within the process can
then be applied to maintain good practice in the future.
Reflective Practice in Health and Social Care
– What is it?
Reflective practice in health and social care involves professionals critically
analysing and evaluating their experiences, actions, and decisions to enhance
learning and improve future practice.

Through using reflective practice it helps health and social care professionals
work collaboratively to share learning experiences and guidance on how best
to deal with similar situations in the future, as well as find strategies to help
overcome the challenges facing the health and social care market to ensure
the best quality care is consistently delivered.
Reflective practice in both health and social care aims to enhance the
quality of care provided to individuals or communities, and promote self-
awareness, and continuous learning. By reflecting on their practice,
health and social care professionals can identify areas for improvement
and adapt their care deliveries accordingly to provide better patient care.

Health and social care professionals consistently reflecting on their

practice can help build stronger multi-disciplinary teams to reduce the
dependency on one another and increase independence in individuals to
provide more options and choices in how their care, support, and
treatment are delivered.
Why is reflective practice important in
healthcare and social care?
• Reflective practice is important in healthcare and social care for
several different reasons. Ultimately both reflective practices allow
health and social care professionals to maintain high standards of
care, adapt to evolving challenges across the market, and foster a new
way of working that concentrates on continuous improvement.
• Through reflective practice, health and social care professionals can
create stronger multidisciplinary teams to make better use of their
resources, improve social care commissioning processes, as well as
the clinical decisions that need to be made.
• Here local authorities can work alongside health and social care
professionals to improve their co-production approaches to deliver
better outcomes-based commissioning concentrating on developing a
well-led, sustainable, and diverse market suitable to all health and
social care needs.
Examples of reflective practice in health and
social care
• Critical Incident Reports – e.g. Analysing specific events or situations to
understand the factors that contributed to their outcomes and lessons learned
• Group Reflection Sessions – e.g. Participating in group discussions or team
meetings to share experiences, perspectives, and insights to collectively learn
from one another
• Clinical Supervision – e.g. Engaging in regular one-to-one sessions with a
supervisor or mentor to reflect on your practice to receive feedback and explore
professional growth opportunities
• Reflective Writing – e.g. Keeping reflective journals to document experiences
including feelings, and lessons learned
• Simulation and role-play – e.g. Participating in simulated scenarios or role-playing
exercises to reflect on practice skills, decision-making, and communication skills
Examples of reflective practice in social care
• Case Reviews – e.g. Reflecting on past cases to evaluate interventions,
outcomes, and areas to improve
• Feedback – e.g. Seeking feedback from service users and their loved
ones to understand their experiences to inform future practice
• Critical Incident Debriefing – e.g. Reflecting on critical incidents or
challenging situations to identify key learning points for the future
• Community engagement – e.g. Reflecting on community engagement
initiatives to assess their effectiveness in promoting social inclusion
and increasing independence
Examples of reflective practice in care homes
• Case Conferences – e.g. Holding regular meetings with care staff,
nurses, and other key health and social care professionals to discuss
individual residents’ needs, challenges, and progress
• Quality Improvement Reviews – e.g. Reflecting on audit findings,
incident reports, and feedback from residents and families to identify
areas for improvement in care delivery, safety protocols, and
communication
• Celebrating successes – e.g. Taking time to recognise and celebrate
achievements, positive outcomes, and examples of excellent care
provisions to foster a culture of learning, appreciation, and
continuous learning
How can technology improve
reflective practices in health and
social care?
1. Digital Journals
2. Mobile apps
3. Data analytics
4. E-learning platforms
5. Electronic Health Records (EHRs)
Gibbs' Reflective Cycle

Gibbs' Reflective Cycle was developed by

Graham Gibbs in 1988 to give structure to
learning from experiences. It offers a
framework for examining experiences, and
given its cyclic nature lends itself particularly
well to repeated experiences, allowing you to
learn and plan from things that either went well
or didn’t go well
It covers 6 stages:
• Description of the experience
• Feelings and thoughts about the experience
• Evaluation of the experience, both good and bad
• Analysis to make sense of the situation
• Conclusion about what you learned and what you could have done
differently
• Action plan for how you would deal with similar situations in the
future, or general changes you might find appropriate.
Description
Here you have a chance to describe the situation in detail. The main points to include here concern what
happened. Your feelings and conclusions will come later. Helpful questions:

• What happened?

• When and where did it happen?

• Who was present?

• What did you and the other people do?

• What was the outcome of the situation?

• Why were you there?

• What did you want to happen?

Feelings
Here you can explore any feelings or thoughts that you had during
the experience and how they may have impacted the experience.
Helpful questions:
What were you feeling during the situation?
What were you feeling before and after the situation?
What do you think other people were feeling about the situation?
What do you think other people feel about the situation now?
What were you thinking during the situation?
What do you think about the situation now?
Evaluation
Here you have a chance to evaluate what worked and what didn’t
work in the situation. Try to be as objective and honest as possible.
To get the most out of your reflection focus on both the positive and
the negative aspects of the situation, even if it was primarily one or
the other. Helpful questions:
What was good and bad about the experience?
What went well?
What didn’t go so well?
What did you and other people contribute to the situation
(positively or negatively)?
Analysis
The analysis step is where you have a chance to make sense of what
happened. Up until now you have focused on details around what
happened in the situation. Now you have a chance to extract meaning
from it. You want to target the different aspects that went well or poorly
and ask yourself why. If you are looking to include academic literature,
this is the natural place to include it.
Helpful questions:
Why did things go well?
Why didn’t it go well?
What sense can I make of the situation?
What knowledge – my own or others (for example academic literature)
can help me understand the situation?
Conclusion
In this section you can make conclusions about what happened. This is
where you summarise your learning and highlight what changes to your
actions could improve the outcome in the future. It should be a natural
response to the previous sections.Helpful questions:
What did I learn from this situation?
How could this have been a more positive situation for everyone
involved?
What skills do I need to develop for me to handle a situation like this
better?
What else could I have done?
Action plan
At this step you plan for what you would do differently in a similar or
related situation in the future. It can also be extremely helpful to
think about how you will help yourself to act differently – such that
you don’t only plan what you will do differently, but also how you
will make sure it happens. Sometimes just the realisation is
enough, but other times reminders might be helpful. helpful
questions:
• If I had to do the same thing again, what would I do differently?
• How will I develop the required skills I need?
• How can I make sure that I can act differently next time?
Explain how to review the
effectiveness of partnership working
in achieving the agreed outcomes of
working together

ILO – 3.4
Appraisal systems

Appraisal is a more formal process involving the review of a social

care worker’s performance and improvement over a period of time,
usually annually. It includes evaluation of goals and objectives;
evaluation of job role; identifying positive performance; identifying
areas for improvement and identifying and planning how
development needs will be met.
What is supervision

Supervision is an accountable, two-way process, which supports,

motivates and enables the development of good practice for
individual social care workers. As a result, this improves the quality
of service provided by the organisation. Supervision is a vital part of
individual performance management.
What is the difference between supervision
and appraisal?
Supervision is the regular, contact between a supervisor and a social
care worker in which to monitor and reflect on practice; review and
prioritise work with individuals; provide guidance and support and
identify areas of work that need development. Appraisal is the evaluation
process that follows the monitoring of practice and performance. It
allows job and individual development objectives and plans, with
milestones, to be agreed for ongoing review through supervision.
What are the
benefits of
supervision and
appraisal?
For the organisation:
• Supporting the social care worker to understand the
organisational values, also what outcomes the organisation is
working to and how they contribute to these.
• Ensuring that service users and their carers receive a quality
service.
• Enabling understanding and implementation of policies and
procedures.
• Improving internal communication.
• Sharing responsibility for achieving outcomes.
• Promoting staff retention.
For the organisation:
• Reducing rates of grievances, sickness and complaints.
• Supporting the social care worker to achieve the organisation’s
outcomes and standards.
• Promoting clear communication between the organisation and the
social care worker.
• Ensuring that the social care worker has a manageable and appropriate
workload.
• To adhere to the relevant Care and Social Services National Minimum
Standards and Code of Practice for Social Care Workers.
• Promoting good practice
For the professional social care worker:
• Supports the social care worker to be clear about his or her
responsibilities and accountabilities and competent in his or her
role.
• The opportunity to reflect on, analyse and evaluate practice.
• Enables setting, agreeing and reviewing SMART (specific,
measurable, achievable, realistic, timely) goals and objectives.
• Provides constructive feedback.
• Promotes consistency of practice.
• Recognises and values good practice.
For the professional social care worker:
• Supports the health and well being of the social care worker.
• Supports people to understand their role in the social care
workforce.
• Reinforces clear professional boundaries.
• Promotes self confidence.
• Identifies learning and development needs.
• Identifies possible coaching and mentoring needs.
• Develops team working.
• Increases transparency and openness.