Partnership

and
Relationships

[Name of the Writer]

[Name of the Supervisor]
[Course]
 Introduction
• Partnerships between different organizations are
common among health and social care sectors in
order to deliver high quality services
• Partnership means two individuals, government
agencies or private organizations join hands together
to achieve the common goals. For example the
hospitals may have partnership with community to
control different diseases
• The health and social care sector must maintain
proper communication and cooperation between
different partners to achieve the set goals (McKeown
et al., 2011)
 Partnership Philosophies
– Hospitals and social work organizations use partnerships
in order to deliver well-coordinated and high quality
services (White et al., 2011)
– There are various partnership philosophies in health and
social care sectors. These philosophies include
empowerment of organizations in partnership, autonomy
and respect for each other, Equity between partners and
making informed decisions
– The partners must empower each other with the help of
coordination and cooperation of activities
– The partners must depend on each other for economic,
financial and social support
 Empowerment
Empowerment is a partnership philosophy with
the help of which the partners can get better
control over decision and actions that will affect
the public health (Pulvirenti et al., 2014)
Empowerment is important because it helps to
establish an honest relationship between the
professional and client
The philosophy of empowerment helps to make
the partnership effective
 Autonomy
• Autonomy means to remain free from external control
or someone else’s authority
• From health and social care partnership, autonomy is
to make independent decisions which will affect other
people’s lives (Bircher & Kuruvilla, 2014)
• Autonomy in health and social care partnership is also
described as a situation in which any person is not
under control by others
• If we consider the partnership of patient and physician,
a patient must be given the autonomy and
independence to choose what type of treatment he
needs
 Equity
• Equity in health context means the distribution
of people’s wellbeing opportunities depend on
the needs of the people

• Equity ensures that each partner must be given

equal access and opportunity to health care
(Kagan et al., 2014)

• Equity means that everyone will get equal

opportunities to maintain health and wellbeing
through fair access to health resources
 Respect
• Partners work to achieve common goals; hence, respect for each
other competencies, skills and resources is important to achieve
the common goals
• In health and social care context, partnership between physician
and patient ensures that patient must be regarded and respected
as an expert
• The doctor must be proficient enough to understand the techniques
of diagnosis, treatment and prevention
• On the other hand, patient knows about his condition, attitude,
behavior and preferences (Dickinson & O'Flynn, 2016)
• The information and knowledge of both partners is required to
manage the disease properly. For this purpose they both have to
share their knowledge in order to take informed decisions
Effectiveness of working in a
Partnership
• Usually the partnership between different
organizations in health and social care sector is not
very strong. For example the elderly do not have
proper access to health and social care providers
• Many elderly and disabled persons are
discriminated in certain services (Glasby &
Dickinson, 2014)
• Immigrants and asylum seekers also do not have
proper access to healthcare as bureaucracies
discourage them to use public hospitals (Casey,
2015)
Effectiveness of working in a
Partnership (Cont’d)
• There is an improvement in partnership relationships
between providers of health and social care services and
other professionals (Mirza et al., 2014)
• In health and social care partners collaborate with
government and private agencies for improvement of the
service provided
• Partners are more focused on providing benefits which
reduces the negative impact of such partnerships
• Health and social care services must focus on effective
delivery of services instead of organizational benefits
 References
• Bircher, J. and Kuruvilla, S., 2014. Defining health by addressing individual,
social, and environmental determinants: New opportunities for health care and
public health. Journal of public health policy, 35(3), pp.363-386.
• Casey, S.E., 2015. Evaluations of reproductive health programs in humanitarian
settings: a systematic review. Conflict and health, 9(1), p.S1.
• Dickinson, H. and O'Flynn, J., 2016. Evaluating outcomes in health and social
care. Policy Press.
• Glasby, J. and Dickinson, H., 2014. Partnership working in health and social
care: what is integrated care and how can we deliver it? Policy Press.
• Kagan, P.N., Smith, M.C. and Chinn, P.L., 2014. Philosophies and practices of
emancipatory nursing: Social justice as praxis (Vol. 11). Routledge.
• McKeown, M., Malihi-Shoja, L. and Downe, S., 2011. Service user and carer
involvement in education for health and social care: Promoting partnership for
health (Vol. 9). John Wiley & Sons.
• Mirza, M., Luna, R., Mathews, B., Hasnain, R., Hebert, E., Niebauer, A. and
Mishra, U.D., 2014. Barriers to healthcare access among refugees with
disabilities and chronic health conditions resettled in the US Midwest. Journal of
Immigrant and Minority Health, 16(4), pp.733-742.
• Pulvirenti, M., McMillan, J. and Lawn, S., 2014. Empowerment, patient centred
care and self‐management. Health Expectations, 17(3), pp.303-310.
• White, S., Fook, J. and Gardner, F., 2006. Critical reflection in health and social
care. McGraw- Hill Education (UK).