Getting health professionals to work together

doi:10.1136/bmj.320.7241.1021

BMJ 2000;320:1021-1022 ( 15 April )

Editorials

Getting health professionals to work together

There's more to collaboration than simply working side by side

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Doctors and nurses work together every day. But is there more to working together than making sure that the work of the oneprofession dovetails with that of the other? Is there really anycontent in the "co" words, so popular in government policy documents $---$ coordination,collaboration, andcooperation?

Researchers are beginning to understand what working together can achieve. The settings are different $---$ how work groups in theprivate sector can perform better,¹ how democracies can involvepeople more directly,^2-4 how conflict can be resolved⁵ $---$ butthe message is the same. Working "together" rather than working"alongside" can energise people and result in new ways of tacklingold problems. We have had glimpses of this in patient participationin the NHS. We know much more than we did even five years agoabout giving lay people the support and information they needto have a meaningful dialogue with managers and . . . [Full text of this article]

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Doctors and nurses: Patrick White, Derek Roskell, Dave Anderson, Jayne Lunn, Francine M Cheater, Norman Vetter, Anne Price, Peter Brindle, Peter Leman, Jane Terris, Chau Shum, Elaine Gill, Nina Bunce, Gill Cunningham, Alison Davies, Cynthia Nemeth, Mary Styles, Arun Kundu, Melanie Munn, Angela Scrase, Rowena Vincent, and David C A Candy
BMJ 2000 321: 698. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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