Strategies to overcome barriers to communication To ensure good communication in a Health and/or Social Care setting

Listening skills In your small groups at your tables have a think about listening skills following our listening activity. What CARE words can you attach to good listening skills? Now think about the DVDs we have watched and apply good listening skills to those scenarios.

Listening Skills Briefly write a scenario from one of the DVDs. Answer the following questions: Was this evidence of good or bad listening skills? What made it good? What made it bad? If bad, what could have been done to improve the listening? How would that have changed the outcome?

Feed back to the class on listening skills Did you use the following words? Empathy Trust Paraphrasing Caring Reflective listening Caring presence (p.23) Compassion Respect AND MANY MORE…..

Staff training In your small groups discuss situations in which you think that there was a barrier to communication which would have been helped by staff training. What was the barrier? Feed back to the class

Staff training in communication in health and social care settings human-rights/training/health-toolkit/ human-rights/training/health-toolkit/

Staff training “People with disabilities experience a range of barriers which prevent them from accessing health and social care on an equal basis. Such barriers include questions over their capacity to make decisions, inaccessible communication, poor physical access and a lack of understanding among health and social care professionals of the 'right' approach.” (reference above website)

Staff training “"Careless", "insincere" and "unclear" communication has fuelled a surge in complaints against the NHS in England, the health service ombudsman has said.” November Poor communication fuels rise in NHS complaints By Caroline Parkinson

Staff training Again: Remember why you are doing this. You need to review strategies to see how they work for the Merit and then you need to look at how effective they are for the Distinction. So…. How effective is staff training? Why?

ASSESSMENT OF NEED Your book says that “it is important to build an understanding of the needs of the people you work with” (p. 29) This might be a professional social work assessment This might be a medical assessment These will clarify a person’s needs AND their preferred method of communication

ASSESSMENT OF NEED In your small groups have a discussion about the DVDs we have watched. Talk about a case in which ‘assessing needs’ would have helped with communication. Feedback to the class How will assessing needs prevent a barrier to communication? How would you evaluate this?

Links for assessment of need ments/Pages/Communitycareassessments.asp x ments/Pages/Communitycareassessments.asp x cuments_info.php?documentID=131 cuments_info.php?documentID=131

Assertiveness (defusing aggression) We have an activity which looks at assertiveness which has a hand out defining assertiveness and aggression and submissiveness. vFf8 vFf8 What approach to diffusing aggression do you think the nurse is using?

Links to assertiveness? Look at the list of strategies to communication. Which do you think are linked? In your small groups put three strategies together and tell me how they are linked.

Promoting Rights Your book (the new one page 29) has a list of rights of people who use services. These rights are established in: National standards Coder of practice Legislation (the law)

Nursing and midwifery code of practice Here are the chapters headings: 1.Make the care of people your first concern treating them as individuals and respecting their dignity 2.Work with others to protect and promote the health and wellbeing of those in your care their families and carers and the wider community

Nursing and midwifery code of practice (con’t) 3. Provide a high standard of practice and care at all times 4. Be open and honest act with integrity and uphold the reputation of your profession Here is the link: uk.org/Publications/Standards/The- code/Introduction/

Codes of Practice for social care workers Here is the link for a similar document for care workers: PracticeforSocialCareWorkers.pdf?res=true These documents ensure that care is provided in a way that puts the service user first. Most barriers to communication can be overcome if this is achieved.

Other strategies to overcome barriers to communication Other barriers are largely linked to the strategies we have covered:  Using preferred method of communication (this is covered in the codes of practice which promote rights, in the assessment of need and in staff training.)

Other strategies to overcome barriers to communication  Building relationships according to your book involves: Skilled listening Appropriate verbal communication Appropriate non-verbal communication (expressing a warm, friendly interest in another person)

Other strategies to overcome barriers to communication  Confidentiality This is a fundamental right which is covered in all codes of practice. If a service user is confident that you will maintain confidentiality they will begin to trust you. If trust is built then the service user will share information with you because they know it will not be passed on. This demonstrates respect. It is covered by the Data Protection Act (1998). BUT you must pass on information if the service user is at risk of harm.

Other strategies to overcome barriers to communication The right way and the wrong way: l8

Other strategies to overcome barriers to communication Aids to communication (p. 35+ in new book)  Advocates: someone who speaks for someone else  Interpreters: people who communicate meaning from one language to another  Translators: people who change recorded material from one language to another  Befriender: someone who seeks to create a supportive relationship with others

Dementia befriender Imagine how barriers to communication with people with dementia could be helped if everyone better understood dementia…

GUIDANCE: You will NOT be able to explain and evaluate all strategies to overcoming barriers to communication. BUT: you should have an understanding of all these strategies. Read your book which will give you more guidance.