Transitions to practice: Essential concepts for health and social care professions

Teena J Clouston, Lyn Westcott, Steven Whitcombe

• Publisher: M&K Update
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781910451588
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Nursing

Whether you are a student, a trainee, or a newly qualified or highly experienced health or social care practitioner, you are always in a state of transition – progressing along a career path, coping with organisational change and dealing with the ever-increasing pressures placed on our health and social care systems.Transitions to practice provides a vital map to help you navigate your way through these changes. The book begins with an exploration of the fundamental aspects of professionalism. This is followed by a section on the importance of communication for effective health and social care practice. The third section focuses on quality in practice; and the final section discusses personal values, safeguarding, spirituality and professional resilience.Each chapter contains learning outcomes and reflective questions to help you apply the discussion to your own experiences and practice. These questions have been designed to challenge you and help you embed the content into your own professional journey, enabling you to uphold key values, like care, compassion and person-centred working, even under pressure.Throughout the book, the authors have highlighted how transitions at all levels of practice are affected by personal, professional, organisational and political agendas that create critical challenges. They have also identified how you can interact with and confront these to effect positive action and change, thus achieving the best outcomes, not only for your patients and clients, but also for your own well-being and that of your colleagues.

Section 1

To begin at the beginning: Scaffolding professional practice

Introduction

by Lyn Westcott

This initial section of the book examines some fundamental concepts that underpin the more personal elements of professionalism for effective, high-quality health and social care practice.

All professionals working in health and social care systems in the UK have accepted the need for their practice to be subject to wider quality systems and frameworks. These frameworks ensure that every practitioner operates within baselines of safety and competence in order to protect the public and the scope of their practice. This has not developed by chance, but out of a need for effective regulation and scrutiny following a series of shocking failures by professionals, such as that at the Mid Staffordshire Hospital described in the Preface. Alongside this, each new professional develops their skills and thinking to meet society’s expectations of their professional role, as well as their own expectations of themselves as a professional practitioner.

This section takes a dual approach to these fundamental issues concerning the concept of professionalism. One approach is to look at the systems that monitor professional practice; the other considers the more personal journey that guides, develops and sustains people when they become newly qualified professionals. This section therefore explores aspects of the key transition from layperson to professional practitioner. Some of the chapters describe systems and expectations that all practitioners need to understand and abide by. Others consider how individuals can embrace the challenges of becoming a professional practitioner. They look at each person entering the professional world and gaining an understanding of their role and obligations within that world. This section thus provides an underlying structure or scaffolding for the later sections of the book. It is a useful section for students, new practitioners or those mentoring or educating students within practice settings.

Chapter 1 sets the scene by outlining the importance of professional ethics, registration systems and fitness to practice procedures in health and social care. Drawing on the lessons of critical incidents from the recent past, the author outlines how systems such as registration and maintenance of ethical standards by professionals ensure the safety of the general public, including the importance of raising concerns about services when working within them. The chapter finishes by posing some reflective questions on how all this works on the ground and challenges the reader to reflect on their role in maintaining ethical standards.

Chapter 2 is authored by two NHS service managers and discusses professionalism in terms of expectations concerning specific professional behaviours within practice settings, especially for students. The chapter challenges the reader by raising specific examples where professionalism might be questioned through behaviours seen in the workplace. It also highlights situations where expectations might differ between academic settings and placement settings. The chapter concludes by asking readers to reflect on a framework of issues that contribute towards professional behaviours.

Chapter 3 takes a very personal approach to considering the journey towards professionalism, making the transition from novice student to more expert practitioner. Using an engaging script-based writing style, the author examines how students move through the challenges of becoming a professional in how they think and behave both within and outside their work. The personal journeys of four health profession students are linked to theory and guidance relevant to novice practitioners becoming more expert professionals. Using reflective questions, the chapter finally challenges the reader to consider their own level of professionalism and how this will change as their career progresses.

Finally, Chapter 4 considers the issues that contribute to people becoming and remaining responsible and autonomous professionals. This chapter encourages the reader to consider their own resources and how these can help them maintain professional growth against a background of persistent change in health and social care, as well as offering some tips on how to do this. The challenge of fitting in development activities is raised and the reader is encouraged to think about remaining resilient to avoid ‘burnout’. The chapter ends by asking the reader to evaluate how they might ensure their own development is maintained and learn from robust role models around them.

In order to get the most from these chapters we ask that you really engage with and reflect on the questions and practical exercises you will find in them. It is only through an honest and meaningful exploration of your own beliefs and values that you will gain the full benefit of this book

Chapter 1

Professional ethics, registration and fitness to practise

Jayne Hancock

Learning outcomes

By the end of this chapter you will be able to understand:

The importance of professional ethics within health and social care

The role of professional bodies in health and social care and how regulatory processes assist in maintaining key standards for performance and ethics

Fitness to practise and the importance of health and social care regulation in ensuring the safety of the general public

How to apply ethical principles to practice and recognise personal responsibility in raising and escalating concerns, also known as ‘whistleblowing’.

Introduction

Professional ethics can be defined as ‘matters of right and wrong conduct, good and bad qualities of character and the professional responsibilities attached to relationships in a work context’ (Banks 2012, p. 7).

Practitioners in health and social care settings work in partnership with multidisciplinary teams, individuals (as clients/patients) and families, usually at times when they are at their most vulnerable. The common aim across the whole health and social care sector is to provide high-quality care and support to ensure the best interests of the individual are central to the provision of an excellent service. It is therefore essential that health and social care practitioners understand the importance of professional ethics across the health and social care spectrum, and how professional ethics form the cornerstone of professional regulation, registration and fitness to practise.

Professional ethics

Ethics is essentially the study of morals and the nature of morality. Morals are the values, principles, rules and practices by which people live, based on socially accepted principles of right and wrong (Melia 2014). A moral individual may be described as honest, righteous, respectable, decent, virtuous, upstanding, high-minded and law-abiding. However, rules of behaviour mean different things to different people depending upon their own life experiences. Ellis (2015) recognised the importance of personal and professional ethics being compatible with each other – because the way we behave in our everyday lives, as individuals, is inextricably linked to our professional behaviour.

Case study 1.1

An individual who is drunk and disorderly at a football match is arrested after assaulting a member of the public and stealing from them. During court proceedings, they are identified as being a health care professional in a responsible role, caring for vulnerable adults.

In this situation, how might their behaviour impact on their role as a health or social care professional?

Highlight the concerns this person’s employer and the public may have.

Reflect on how you would feel, having to work with this person.

Professional ethics are the accepted standard of personal and professional behaviour expected of a member of a profession. Ethics are fundamental to the professional practice of health and social care practitioners who need to behave in an ethically acceptable way. The World Health Organisation (2011) identify ethics as ‘moral principles, values and standards of conduct’, recognising the way they are inextricably linked to health care delivery, professional integrity and data handling – especially while working with members of the public when they are at their most vulnerable.

There are a number of ethical principles that health and social care professionals need to consider in their practice:

Autonomy or self-rule is the capacity to think, decide and act freely and independently

Beneficence is the promotion of what is best for the client or service user

Non-maleficence is the avoidance of harm to the client or service user

Justice is fairness within health care; ‘to each according to his need’ without discrimination, a balance of time and resources.

These points are supported by veracit...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of contributors
• Preface
• Introduction
• Section 1. To begin at the beginning: Scaffolding professional practice
• Section 2. Working together and communication
• Section 3. Quality in practice
• Section 4. Caring values, spirituality, resilience and the duty of care
• Epilogue
• Index