Coomunication Issues in Health and Social Care

Certificate Assessment: Issues with communication  

This assessment is going to include the problems faced in Health and Social care with communication issues. There are many different sectors that cause communication issues, which include disability, different ethnicity, multi agencies, confidentiality and more. These issues can be towards anyone in health and social care and can make these types of people feel very non inclusive. Many rules (legislations) have been put in place, this is meant to reduce unfair treatment ect in health care. However, issues are still occurring, so the professionals may not be taking the training on board and may be forgetting/ignoring it. Which can become very fatal in Health and social care and can cause communication issues because patients may not feel comfortable about sharing their experiences.

There are many advantages and disadvantages when it comes to communication. Working in health and social care, the workers e.g nurses, doctors and any other roles would have to deal with all different types of people with different situations and needs. There are many types of communication that can be used, this is because within the health and social care setting clients come in with different needs and they need to be able to understand each other to get the best treatment needed. These types of communication include verbal, nonverbal, body language, sign language, writing, lip reading, braille and more. However, communication is still a problem within this setting and there are many issues.

Communication issues include Disability. A disability is a condition that physically or mentally limits a person to be able to function correctly, around 15% of the worlds population can suffer from this which has increased from the 1970s (World Health Organization, 2019).  Disability has different types of sectors to it and people can suffer majorly or just a little bit that isn’t that noticeable. Disabilities within communication issues includes Aphasia, this communication issue is common with patients who have experienced a stroke, brain tumor, brain infection, or dementia. Having aphasia is not having the ability to understand or produce language, this can happen to any type of person. This means this can affect someone who are completely okay, meaning this condition can affect someone’s life e.g being able to go to school/work. As Well as aphasia affecting a person’s day to day life, it can also give an disadvantage with communicating in health and social care causing a issue. Health and social care may tend to be a fast pace environment, this would make it harder to communicate with these types of people because the workers may try to get the job done as efficiently as they can. Therefore, this would mean that the worker will have to wait around until the patient can get across what they are going to say. As Well as this the patient would feel uncomfortable because the patient might feel as though they are being trouble and wasting the workers time. Not having good communication would mean that they cannot get across of the symptoms ect they are having, so the health care professionals will not be able to give the best care possible.

Another disability that would cause an issue within health and social care communicating would be somebody with learning difficulties. People who experience learning difficulties would feel very uncomfortable with communicating and feel as though it is very challenging, this can affect their day to day life. The condition: learning difficulties would mean that the person would find it very difficult to understand the language. However people can suffer from this in different ways, this being mid or severe which can be very different in communicating and having issues. In health and social care this would cause an communication issue because the patient may not understand what is being said, so they won’t be able to refer and understand what treatment is needed and the further requests. As a result of learning difficulties the people will experience problems such as speech, language, communication and sensory impairment. The only way that patient will be able to understand what is being said, the worker ect would have to say it a different way for them to understand. However in a stressful environment the worker in health and social care may not realise or forget to do so, making the patient feel very frustrated and not happy with the service given. To make effective communication with the patients, people working in this setting may find using things such as  Makaton, gestures and symbols useful (The needs of people with Learning disabilities, 2017).

Lastly another disability would also include being deaf. This would cause communication issues because it would be harder for the patient and the other person  talking to them, to understand each other. The worker would also have to adjust themselves when talking to the patient tp supply for their needs. Hearing loss can be very fatal if found out too late because it can reduce the development of language. Especially children can have difficulties with language and communication because they cannot hear all the sounds around them, so the basic level of development would be delayed (Anon, 2019). In health and social care the patient and professional would have to use other ways to communicate such as lip reading and sign language (Hearingdogs.org.uk, 2019). However this may be a problem as not everyone may not be trained to do so, this would mean that the workers would have to find someone who can. Which would take time and it could delay a lot in health and social care, when emergencies are taken place. This would also link to blindness, this would cause communication issues in health and social care because the patient are unable to follow instructions easily for example in health and social care, the receptionist tend to point people in the right direction. This would therefore mean the client needs extra support. The communication issue would affect the patient and the care given because they would feel confused on where to go. Also when the patient goes into the room with the doctor ect, the doctor shows them whats wrong with the patient through diagrams on computer screens. Using scans and more.

To overcome problems with communication in health and social care with people who have disabilities there are many characteristics of a career that are important to have. One way is that they should be skilled for the job and able to speak to people/patients of any age. Having anyone of all needs walk through the door the workers will need to be prepared, so being able to do sign language would be very helpful and it will save more time and staff. Another characteristic that should be shown is to be patient and and confident. This would allow the professional to give the service not bothering about how they look when adapting for someone’s needs, overall good communication in any workplace is a key characteristic (Community Care Jobs, 2019).  The key issue with communicating with a patient with a disability would be that the worker would feel really nervous talking to them because they would feel as though they don’t know how and they wouldn’t know if the message is getting across properly. Feeling nervous and uncomfortable about using language towards them would mena that when the worker is about to speak to the client, it is more likely going to come out wrong because of nerves. This would make the patient even more confused and not happy with the service given. Another issue with communicating with a patient with a disability would be that the professional may assume they are thick when all that’s wrong is that they have difficulty speaking e.g stroke. This would make the patient feel very uncomfortable if the worker doesn’t have the patients to wait for them to talk. The worker may also talk to them like they are stupid, which would make them feel very angry and frustrated.  Patients who suffer from this different types of disabilities would more commonly come in the health and social care setting, due to regular checkups. This would mean the professionals would come across them a lot and would need to know how to care from these type of people.

Legislations have been put in place because it is a law that has been prompted by a governing body or the process of making it. legislations is very important because they organise the society and protects the citizens. They give the public their own rights and responsibilities of individuals. It will make everyone feel welcome for their own choices, it reduces discrimination and guarantees equality. A piece of legislation that would link into disability and communication issues would be the Equality Act 2010. The Equality Act 2010 protects individuals from unfair treatment and promotes a fair and equal society. In health and socials care this includes many sectors such as age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation (Scie.org.uk, 2019). However these legislations are put in place to protect patients, they sometimes don’t work and cause communication issues. This is because patients get treated differently on their age and disability ect. People with disability would get treated differently and the worker tend to treat them as though they are uninformed. The Care Quality Commission would link into the Equality of care given to patients because they make sure that care provided by hospitals, dentists, ambulances, care homes and services in people’s own homes and elsewhere meets government standards of quality and safety (Housingcare.org, 2019). This can then go on to say about equality, diversity and inclusive practice and how it ensures in relation to communication issues. Having the same rights and getting treated the same is very important in health and social care. Diversity means the different range of ideas this could lead to communication issues because people would have a conflict with their views, this would make people feel very frustrated when their views are not being taking on board. Inclusion is the act of being included in a group structure, this can also lead to communication issues because the wrong person might hear something that could be personal to somebody (Eastonotley.ac.uk, 2019). Secondly another key issue with communication is multi agencies. Multi agencies involved practitioners from a different range of professions, they are brought together to provide an integrated way of working to support people such as children, young people and families. These professions are likely going to include social work, health, education, Early Years, youth work, police and youth justice (Webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk, 2019). Having these type of people work together with their particular role would mean that the child/young person/family can have the best possible outcome with the problem they are facing. However there are many disadvantages to multi agencies that may cause communication issues and this could go on further to make even worse issues. There are more cases when multi agencies have not worked compared to them working. Issues include communication not working and there being a lack of it. Gathering all the professionals may be very hard as not everyone can work around each other and setting a date and time would be very difficult. Also having a place big enough for all these people would be very hard to find. This would mean the professionals cannot communicate properly and everything they will discus would be very rushed as they  may become held up from somewhere else they need to be. Another communication issue with multi agencies is that everyone has their own views, so there might be a conflict with all the professionals opinions. This would also take a lot of time to come up with an conclusion and an final answer to a problem. In social care,multi agencies would support family and make sure clients are being free from harm,abuse ect and living their life how they would like it to be with the extra support.

Not having proper communication and having issues can lead to cases such as the death of Victoria Climbie. Victoria’s great aunt Kouao would abuse her on a daily basis in many ways. Victoria was very used to her aunt and her uncle doing this to her, they said “they could beat her with anything and she wouldn’t cry”. The last days of her life in the winter of 1999–2000, Victoria spends this living and sleeping in a bath in an unheated bathroom, bound hand and foot inside a bin bag, lying in her own urine and faeces. Due to no communication and a bad working relationship she died this is because a social worker called at her home several times. She got no reply when she knocked at the door and assumed that Victoria and Kouao had moved away. It is possible that at the time, Victoria was in fact lying just a few yards away, in the prison of the bath, desperately hoping someone might find her. The staff trying to deal with this had a lack of professional skill and they needed to combine their ideas.  While the standard of work done by those with direct contact with her was generally of very poor quality, the greatest failure rests with the managers and senior members of the authorities whose task it was to ensure that services for children, like Victoria, were properly financed, staffed, and able to deliver good quality support to children and families (Lx.iriss.org.uk, 2019).

Codes of practise are very important in Health and Social care, they are a set of written rules that show how the professional should behave (Collinsdictionary.com, 2019). If staff are not trained to the standards of code of practise, this can cause communication issues because the workers will not being able to do the job and won’t be able to behave in specific ways that meets requirements.  If staff are not taught how to give the correct care and support, the service given will not be good and it will affect many patients. Not being able to do the job properly, this would make the service very unorganised and the professionals won’t be able to talk to each other about the patients treatment ect because they won’t know how to transfer important information. Having no structure to the work and being unorganised will mean that they cannot communicate efficiently and there will be many issues. This could lead to mistreatment, as they are unsure on what’s happening and things may happen such as giving the patient the wrong medication. This would link into the multi agencies by professionals not discussing important information the way it should. 

People are all different in their own ways and come from different backgrounds. This would therefore mean that their will be workers and even patients of different Ethnicity to each other. Using a different language would therefore mean that there will be a communication issue because not everyone can use the same language and they won’t understand each other. Having this issue would cause many frustrations, making patients feel very out of hands when they dont know whats going on. Being a patient or worker with a different ethnicity can mean that they can lack in confidence because they would feel like they are the odd one out and disrespected as no one can really understand them. Communication issues would link to the case study of a  Bangladeshi woman living in the UK. The women felt as though they treated her really dumb because she couldn’t express how she was feeling, positive or negative. The nurses also neglected her, so she didn’t know if it was got to do with her race and she wasn’t sure about the surgerys being taken place (Open.edu, 2019). Lastly another communication issue faced in health and social care is the confidentiality of everyone. Confidentiality in health and social care means not telling anyone private information about the client to people who shouldn’t know. It should only be told to certain people if the worker believes that patient is in danger in any way. Confidentiality is very vital and can become really dangerous if not handled correctly. Confidentiality is very important in health and social care because its part of moral respect and it is important to have a good trust bond between the patient and the worker. If confidentiality is not up to the right standards it can cause communication issues because if the wrong person gets the personal information, it will cause distress with many people. This also includes not telling any information about the patient to their family because they may want time to tell their family and they may be embarrassed by the results, as a worker keeping their information private would cover their own back and stop them from getting in trouble. Patients would hesitate revealing information because it may affect their reputation, lifestyle, employment or personal relationships (Dr Vivienne Nathanson, 2019).

Confidentiality would link into the legislation of the Data Protection Act 1998. The Data Protection Act 1998 is in place to make sure all personal Information is handled correctly and protected in how it is stored. It also controls how the personal information is used and organised (GOV.UK, 2019). Due to the data protection act, in a health care environment they would have to make sure everything has good security. On computers with everyone’s information they would make sure they have passwords and in filing cabinets they would lock it so everything is all protected. Only a certain person would be able to get into the filing cabinets. However there can be some issues that can lead to communication problems. One problem would be the increase in using technology. A problem with this is that the technology does not always work and it can breakdown and lose a lot of information that may be very important in health and social care. This would therefore lead to patients be unattended because the information loss, would make the workers very unorganised and not sure on what patient needs what treatment. Another problem that can lead to the information being handled by the wrong people is technology hacker. This would cause many stress within patients and workers, and have a big effect on patients. 

Communication in practice can be improved in the future by many ways. One way could be an improvement with staff/professionals training. Better/strict training would mean that professionals would stick to their role more and not ignore the rules giving because many staff ignore these rules when they are in a rush ect. Better training would also allow a better experience of knowing what to do in situations with patients with communication issues. Another way that could improve future practice with communication issues would be to make leaflets of describing ways in which you can support these types of people with communication issues in health and social care. In which these leaflets can be given to patients and the professionals. Having confidentiality in health and social care is very important, this would mean that patients/staffs would have to know the limits. To improve this the health and social care setting could make leaflets on what questions are needed and what nobody should ever ask or find out about someone. There are many ways that can improve communication issues in any workplace, such as meeting the needs of the audience and making smart decisions and thinking before you speak (Grossman, 2019).

In conclude, there are still many problems in Health and social care and there are still fatal accidents happening when they are not meant to due to the lack of proper communication. In conclude these communication issues are very much down to how well the staff knows their job and how much information they take on board to apply to their work e.g being able to speak to patients with all needs. From this assessment, It also shows how many rules and regulations have to be confirmed and how little things can cause so much danger in health and social care. It also show that communication issues can lead to mistreating patient and not fulfilling their needs.  

Reference list

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