Require effective communication among healthcare professionals to avoid conflicting patient advice

The Index has not yet recorded a verbatim government response to this recommendation.

Please see our responses to Recommendations 1 (patient centred care), 2 (shared decision-making) and 50 (leadership).

The NHS Constitution sets out the six core NHS values. These include commitment to quality of care and working together for patients. These values are set at the highest level by the Department of Health and Social Care through the NHS Constitution and the Government’s Mandate to NHS England.

Effective communication is a vital component in providing quality care in health. Good communication skills within and between teams benefits patients, but also those working as part of the team, helping reduce risks and providing support for staff. Understanding individual communication styles and how they impact on team function is crucial for the development of positive team attributes and the reduction and management of conflict. There are several tools which have been developed to assist this:

• The NHS Long Term workforce plan, which contains a specific focus on optimising multi-disciplinary teams (MDTs).

• Guidance on information sharing in MDTs, developed by NHS England, the Information Commissioners Office and the National Data Guardian.

• Professional regulators, such as:

o GMC guidance on Decision Making and Consent, which provides advice on wider team involvement but also the delegation of decision making.

o The GMC provide guidance on working with colleagues, outlining how respect and good communication is essential for good and safe patient care.

• Working differently together, a toolkit developed by HEE (now part of NHS England) , provides a step-by-step guide to help progress a ‘one workforce’ approach across health and care organisations and ICSs. ‘One workforce’ is intended to be indicative of a workforce drawn from a range of health and social care disciplines, working seamlessly as a productive, multifunctional team across clinical pathways.

The CQC considers the effectiveness of MDT working when it assesses services. In its previous inspection approach, prompts about MDT working were added to the relevant inspection framework. CQC have now implemented and started assessing against the Single Assessment Framework (SAF). MDT working is assessed under the Effective Quality Statement for how staff, teams and services work together.

The Government agreed with this recommendation.

In its January 2002 response, the Department of Health said that its communications initiative would ensure patients were at the focus of team working and inter-professional care, with healthcare professionals developing these skills through joint learning.