Facilitating Change in Health and Social Care

Unit 26 Facilitating Change in Health and Social Care Assignment

This Facilitating Change in Health and Social Care Assignment aims to provide a detailed understanding regarding the change in health and social care services and the benefits and practices for evaluating these changes. Health and social care services are continually subjected to many types of change: political, legal, organisational, demographic, cultural and technological. New ideas about the best ways to provide care for individuals, such as partnership and collaborative working, constraints on public spending, and advances in technology, all impact organisations, staff and those who use services. Poorly managed change never works well, as it creates stress and resistance, so learning how to manage change effectively and help others in this continual process is crucial to effective service delivery. This Facilitating Change in Health and Social Care Assignment introduces learners to the range of factors that can influence change, the effects on organisations, staff and users of services and the fundamental principles of successful change management. Learners are also encouraged to evaluate the benefits of continuing change in health and care services.

Learning Outcomes of Unit 26 Facilitating Change in Health and Social Care Assignment

On successful completion of this Facilitating Change in Health and Social Care Assignment a student will:

1. Understand the factors that drive change in health and social care services
2. Be able to evaluate recent changes in health and social care services
3. Understand the principles of change management

1. Understand the factors that drive change in health and social care services

Political and legal: factors eg modernisation agenda; current legislation eg Health Act 1999, NHS and Community Care Act 1990, Health and Social Care Act 2001; changes of government; funding issues

Demographic and cultural: factors eg ageing population, minority ethnic community needs, lifestyle factors, public awareness (perceptions) and news media, human factors

Technological: factors eg electronic record keeping; electronic communication; assistive technology

• Be able to evaluate recent changes in health and social care services

Impact of recent changes on organisations and staff: how services are organised; effect on front-line staff; effect on service delivery

Impact of recent changes on users of services: direct users; families of those who use services

Benefits of recent changes: for the government; for workers in services; for those who use services

• Understand the principles of change management

Key principles of change management: Kotter’s eight steps to successful change; Leavitt’s model of change; people’s reactions to change; dealing with people’s fears and anxieties; understanding people’s needs; reducing resistance to change; leading change; creating ownership

How change is planned: methods eg consultation; communication; top-down or bottom-up; management style; use of informal social systems; reconditioning; managing anxiety; staff development needs

How change is monitored: measuring and monitoring eg evaluative research surveys; customer/staff satisfaction; measures of efficiency (cost-benefit, referral rates, case completion, waiting and response times)

Learning Outcomes of Unit 26 Facilitating Change in Health and Social Care Assignment and Assessment Criteria

Learning outcomes On successful completion of this Unit 26 Facilitating Change in Health and Social Care Assignment:	Assessment criteria for passing The student can:
LO1 Understand the factors that drive change in health and social care services	explain the key factors that drive change in health and social care services assess the challenges that key factors of change bring to health and social care services.
LO2 Be able to evaluate recent changes in health and social care services	devise a strategy and criteria for measuring recent changes in health and social care measures the impact of recent changes on health and social care services against set criteria evaluate the overall impact of recent changes in health and social care propose appropriate service responses to recent changes in health and social care services.
LO3 Understand the principles of change management	explain the key principles of change management explain how changes in health and social care are planned assets how to monitor recent changes in health and social care services.

Solution of Unit 26 Facilitating Change in Health and Social Care Assignment

Task 1. LO 1 Factors that drive change

1.1 key factors that drive change

1.2 D2. Assess the challenges of the critical factors

M1 Strategies to find appropriate solutions

Task 2. LO 2 Evaluate recent changes

2.1 M2 A strategy and criteria for measuring recent changes

2.2 Impact of recent changes against set criteria

2.3 D1 D3 Evaluate the overall impact of recent changes

2.4 Propose appropriate service responses to recent changes

Task 3. LO 3 Principles of change management

3.1 M3 Key principles of change management

3.2 Explain how changes are planned

3.3 Assess how to monitor recent changes

References

Task 1. LO 1 Factors that drive change

1.1 Key factors that drive change

Change is the process of transition from the current state to achieve future conditions, which may be encouraged internally or externally(Schaffer, et al., 2013). Organizational change is a continuous process no matter if it is unexpected or anticipated, certain challenges and opportunities are experienced at work. In the current scenario, like all other organizations, health and social care settings also need or experience constant changes(Benn, et al., 2014). The underlying key factors that drive change in health and social care settings are political and legal, demographic and cultural, and technological.

Political and legal factors: Modernisation agenda is the most common users term used to state the process of reforming services to match the expectations of health and social care service users. These include attempts to manage complex and long-term social issues such as mortality and morbidity. Current legislation such as the health Act 1999, NHS and Community Care Act 1990, Health and Social Care Act 2001 have also brought reforms in the health and social care service patterns(NHS, 2016). Further changes of government and funding issues also have brought in to change in the system as with the minimisation of government funding on NHS, the efficiency of public resources have been maximised to sustain this economic downturn(KingsFund, 2017).

Demographic and cultural factors: Although the development of modern science and health care has improved people’s life expectancy, the incidence of chronic illness increases with age and becomes a major cause of the health care burden. Apart from an ageing population, different demographic and cultural factors also have driven change in the health and social care settings are minority ethnic community needs, lifestyle factors, public awareness and news media and human factors(Ali, et al., 2013). Due to increasing multiculturalism in today’s society, people from different demographic backgrounds have different health care needs and health problems for example ethnic minority groups of people are prone to diabetes, heart diseases and obesity which may be less found among white Europeans(Mockford, et al., 2012).

Technological factors: Technology has gone through extensive development that has facilitated health care settings through electronic record keeping, carrying out electronic communication and assistive technology for better health care provisions(Baker & Denis, 2011). Therefore, the mentioned changes have been adopted in health care settings for better health care provision and outcomes.

1.2 D2. Assess the challenges of the key factors

The key factors that that drive change to health and social care settings pose challenges alongside benefits in healthcare provision.

Factors	Strengths	Weaknesses
Political and Legal	Health Act 1999, NHS and Community Care Act 1990, Health and Social Care Act 2001 were designed to build coordinated and partnerships working for better health and social care provision to community people through local agencies, community and the NHS. The efficiency of public resources has been maximised to sustain the global economic slowdown.	Minimised funding on the NHS also has adverse impacts on the health care social care provision as it led to staff training, equipment and consequently patient health care outcomes.
	NHS and Community Care Act 1990 was the first major reform of the NHS, social care departments were provided with the responsibility for community care of the elderly population. Therefore elderly care was entirely handed over to the community care institutes so that better care can be provided.
	Health Act 1999 aimed at enhancing the quality of care given to the care users by the NHS and a number of services were developed to strengthen coordination between the NHS and the local authorities.
	Health and Social Care Act 2001 allowed local areas to build care trust where joint working and services were ineffective. Therefore complex and long-pending social issues and thus changes were integrated to those parts of the public sector that remained untouched.
Demographic and Cultural	Demographic and cultural background also required to go through changes in the health and social care providers so that individual care needs can be met.
Ageing population	Health conditions have been improved in recent times and thus life expectancy has increased. However, instances of chronic illness could not be diminished.	Meeting chronic health conditions has been a burden on the system. Hence managing the health issues of the ageing population is difficult.
Minority ethnic community needs	Managing the health needs of ethnic minority groups have been very difficult due to certain reasons such as barriers to care accessibility, prone to chronic diseases, lack of awareness, Etc.
Lifestyle factors	A lot of awareness campaigns and education have been provided to the population about the lifestyle factors that have an adverse impact on the health conditions of people.	Lifestyle factors such as smoking, alcohol, lack of physical exercise, poor diet leading to obesity or malnutrition, sexual behaviour and problems resulting from drug abuse could not be minimised.

Public awareness and news media and human factors	Public awareness and social media have been taking active initiative in making people aware of different issues and factors underlying these health issues. These factors have assessed and identified the care provisions that have failed in meeting the care needs of people.
Technological	Technological factors such as electronic record-keeping, carrying out electronic communication and assistive technology for better health care provisions have been adopted in health care settings for better health care provision and outcomes.
Electronic record-keeping	Electronic record-keeping has minimised the time of data management and made the process of accessing stored data easier.	However, the health and social care settings have to train their staff in managing this equipment and hence financial investment is needed.
Electronic communication	This has made communication within organizations and outside settings much easier and more prompt and thus resulting in better and fast care provision.
Assistive Technology	Assistive technology has benefitted care providers in improved time management and users receive improved care through reminding them about medication, finding people when they get lost(Intellect, 2013).	It is ineffective when there are insufficient carers or care workers to respond to an alert.

M1 Strategies to find appropriate solutions

The issues that have been identified related to the key factors of organizational change in health and care setting, certain improvement strategies must be integrated:

Employment of new staff: Health care settings also must have the required number of staff so that they can look into the areas they are responsible at and thus work stress of the staff can be minimised while the quality of care can be improved as well. In order to minimise the challenges of assistive technology, health care settings must ensure that they have adequate staff in responding to the alerts.

Training: Further staff training is needed to be improved so that they are competent and skilled in meeting health care users needs. Not only recruiting health care professionals would suffice in maintaining the highest standard of care but they also need to be adequately trained as per their skill gaps(NHS England, 2017).

Educating communities: In order to address issues associated with demographic and cultural factors, people must be educated well about different lifestyle factors how those factors have been affecting their health conditions and how such situations a avoided. Further barriers to accession of health care must be removed by promoting community engagement in care service provision, encouraging them to visit care institutes, expressing their health needs and promoting their culture as well as identified by NHS Choices, (2015).

Changes in management and operation: In order to manage the funding of NHS, the government must revise related policies so that better care provision can be provided. Voluntary works must be promoted in different communities. The operational cost must be diminished and the potential of different institutes must be explored.  Proper planning for educating communicating also must be done.

Better assessment and evaluation: Healthcare policies and procedures must be evaluated accurately so that the loopholes can be identified and those can be mitigated accordingly. Regular monitoring of the procedures must be carried out so that improvement can be done.

Task 2. LO 2 Evaluate recent changes

2.1 M2 A strategy and criteria for measuring recent changes

Introduction:

Various strategies can be implemented so that changes that occur in the health care settings can be measured. Some of the measurement strategies are interviews, questionnaires, possible adverse or unexpected healthcare outcomes and monitoring cost-benefit analysis of solutions. Different criteria for measuring health care outcomes have complied with minimum standards of the health care settings(Swayne, et al., 2012).

Findings:

The health care settings also must abide by local and national policies and legislations regarding best practice, codes of practice, benchmarks, legislation, performance indicators, and charters. The health care settings not only must abide by various other “core competencies” policies such as Person-centred care, Duty of care, Safeguarding, Effective Communication, Personal development, Infection control and prevention, Handling data and information, diversity and inclusion and Equality, Moving and assisting and Health and safety measures in place(UKCEN: Clinical Ethics Network, 2014).

In order to measure the effectiveness of the organizational change on front-line staff, data can be collected with the use of a Questionnaire in order to find out the benefits and disadvantages of the organizational change. Additionally, managers can be interviewed so that they can share their insights on the planned organizational change and their evaluation process. By finding out the change gaps, health care settings can focus on those and adopt various techniques to address those. Further data on attitude, beliefs, employee behaviour, demographic attributes and people preferences can be collected through the survey(Swayne, et al., 2012). These surveys would enable the health care institute in understanding patients’ health needs so that those can be compared after the health care outcomes are achieved. Therefore, the standard of service delivery can be evaluated by assessing care users viewpoints on the care provided to them.

Further cost-benefit analysis can be carried out to assess the benefits of organizational change. It is the process of identifying weaknesses and strengths so that benefits can be achieved. Changes such as a change in leadership change, recruiting and training of staff, technological implementation for communication, maintaining of records, assistive technology can be assessed with the application of this strategy(Alvesson & Sveningsson, 2015).

Possible negative impacts or unexpected outcomes also may occur in health care settings followed by implementation of organizational change such as integration of new technology, change in a business process that again may be considered as an assessment strategy for measurement of the effectiveness or weakness of change. Certain adverse consequences such as failing to respond through assistive technology, improper record-keeping, or lack of staffs training may take place due to technological or procedural change in the organization(The King’s Fund, 2018).

2.2 Impact of recent changes against set criteria

Data collection is a systematic procedure of data gathering and assessing information that is acquired from a wide range of sources through interviews, surveys and questionnaire methods. To identify the impacts of the different organizational changes, employment of new staff, training,  educating communities, changes in management and operation, and better assessment and evaluation procedures, different strategies have been adopted. Recent changes that have been made in the organization have resulted in many changes in staff and care users. An increased number of changes is recruited in order to meet the increasing health care needs of care users. Regular training also has been arranged so that the care standard of the organization is maintained. Changes process also is included so that operational costs can be minimised and maximum potential of the staffs and other resources can be exploited. The government also is able to meet the increasing health demands of the population will a lesser waiting time reported. Increased training also has minimised unexpected errors in care facilities. Training not only has improved quality of care but also has improved staffs competence, which has improved their motivation at work and confidence in accomplishing their tasks more accurately(van Wijngaarden, et al., 2012). Changing in the health care settings management also has demonstrated lesser complaints from the care users family members about meeting the health care needs of patients. Better assessment and monitoring of care provision has enabled the healthcare institute to identify errors and thus address those more accurately. By educating communities, people have become aware of lifestyle factors and how those factors affect people’s health status.

2.3 D1 D3 Evaluate overall impact of recent changes

One of the major drawbacks of the change is staffs reluctance to embrace change as they feel better working within the previous system. Nonetheless, the barriers have been addressed after the staff are educated about the needs for change and the benefits of change they will achieve. Health care settings had to invest a huge amount in staff training and recruitment that may again pose a burden on the government. However, care users have immensely been benefitted from the changes adopted in the system as they are receiving more effective and prompt care with lesser incidences of long waiting times. Staff also have been facilitated in improving their competence and professional skills. In an attempt to meet the increasing needs of care users staff require to put in more working hours for better service delivery which again has been affecting their quality of life and increasing work-related stress(Swayne, et al., 2012). Not only the care users and their families have been benefitted from the organizational changes, but the development of care standards also has improved the organization’s efficiency in meeting the needs of users more efficiently. Although the change that is implemented is a time taking and cost-efficient process, it has a number of benefits on the health care users, induvial care professionals, and overall organization.

Hence it can be summed up to conclude that key factors that drive organizational change are staff, financial support, management, community and government support and effective planning so that importance of change can be identified and educated to the stakeholders who are involved in the process of change.

2.4 Propose appropriate service responses to recent changes

A proposition can be designed towards appropriate service provision to recent changes carried out in the health care setting. In this regard management team of the system must bring into substantial change such as an employee engagement approach where they can express their thoughts and opinions and give feedback on the change system and how further improvement can be brought into. Interviews with staff must be conducted which may minimise their negative feelings about the proposition of change. Clear and transparent communication must be conducted with the staff and seek their feedback on the training sessions and another sort of organizational support given to them(Mitchell, et al., 2012). Further recent changes can be evaluated by monitoring patients waiting time, admission and discharge and promptness in dealing with referrals. Further debates also may be arranged on the standard of care maintained in the health care settings mong the care users family and friends so that errors or gaps can be identified. Regular evaluation of staffs performance also can be conducted so that effectiveness of the training can be recognised. Further suggestions also can be asked to form the staff and their supervisors in identifying their skill gaps and ways to address those.

Task 3 LO3 Principles of change management

3.1 M3 Key principles of change management

Kotter’s eight steps to successful change encompasses8 overlapping stages, first three are all about the climate for change, the following is on facilitating and involving the organization and the last is integrating and sustaining change. The health and social care setting must implement apply this model of change management. Hence, the setting must create a feeling of urgency among the staff where they realise the significance of the change that it must undergo. Further, by creating urgency the organization would be able to communicate messages and handle staff and other stakeholders’ distrust, anger and anxiety(Cummings & Worley, 2014). The organization develops a strategic vision and initiatives so that staffs have clear about the objective of the change plan. Initially, the management must understand people’s reactions to change as they are likely to show distrust, anger and anxiety and thus dealing with people’s fears and anxieties efficiently by understanding their needs will enable the organization to move forward.

Figure: Kotter’s principle of change management

Source:(Schaffer, et al., 2013)

All the staff are engaged in the process through motivation and answering their queries and thus removing barriers to change. The staff must be engaged in short term targets so that the change can be implemented and sustained for a longer time. With the implementation of this model, the organization is able to develop a new culture through positive behaviour and shared values through a number of efforts(Freshwater, 2012).

3.2 Explain how changes are planned

Changes in health and social care settings are planned through consultation with staff and care users. Care users are consulted in order to understand their health needs and evaluate how those needs have been addressed in the specific institute. Further changes are planned through effective communication in both top-down and bottom-up ways that makes all the staff and managers engage in the process. Staff also are allowed to clarify their queries about the change process so that keep away from anxiety, or fear to change. Further organizational managers must adopt an effective management style that allows staff to engage in decision-making and communication go from both the manager down to employees and from the employees up to the managers(Hayes, 2014). Therefore democratic management style is the most effective for the particular organizational change. With the use of informal social systems, organizational staff are allowed to get more engaged with the culture, which again can be encouraged with the adoption of a transformational leadership style that would encourage staff in generating innovative and creative ideas to resolve identified issues(Huang & Garrett, 2012). Mentioned approaches also are effective in managing staffs anxiety that is likely to emerge due to a changed system. Further staff development needs must be prioritised so that they strengthen their skills and competence and feel motivated to be a part of the change system.

3.3 Assess how to monitor recent changes

Monitoring recent changes in health and social care services play a very critical in identifying flaws in the system and thus addressing those accurately. Evaluation of recent changes can be carried out through research surveys. Further customer and staffs satisfaction towards the workplace also can be assessed from their feedbacks collected in order to identify whether the change has improved employee satisfaction or not. Employee retention or turnover also can be an important strategy to measure employee satisfaction(Jones, 2013). Positive outcomes can be considered for increased referral rates, higher case completion, lower waiting and response times. Research surveys can be conducted by gathering information from information and data from staff, managers, users and families about care standard respondents’ feedback, and observations, questionnaires and spot checks. However, collecting information from staff may be time taking may affect their work while some may not be open to sharing their opinions(Cummings & Worley, 2014). Organizational managers are dependable sources of information that they will share from their experience and vast knowledge. Cost-benefit analysis is again an effective method to assess the effectiveness of the change process that will demonstrate whether the care system has been efficient in meeting the health care needs of people within the given budget.

References

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Alvesson, M. & Sveningsson, S., 2015. Changing organizational culture: Cultural change work in progress. s.l.:Routledge.

Baker, G. & Denis, J., 2011. Medical leadership in health care systems: from professional authority to organizational leadership. Public Money & Management, 31(5), pp. 355-362.

Benn, S., Edwards, M. & Williams, T., 2014. Organizational change for corporate sustainability.. 4th ed. UK: Routledge.

Cummings, T. & Worley, C., 2014. Organization development and change. s.l.:Cengage learning.

Freshwater, D., 2012. Managing movement, leading change. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, pp. 3-4.

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