BMJ 2000;320:1022-1023 ( 15 April )

Editorials

What's so great about collaboration?

We need more evidence and less rhetoric

General practice pp   1038 , 1043 , 1048 , 1053

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

A recent white paper on the NHS strongly recommended improved teamwork between professionals.¹ On what basis? How well do nurses and doctors collaborate? Does it matter to anyone? And if it matters, can it be improved? The short answer to all of these questions is: We don't know.

The modern concern with interactions between doctors and nurses began with an opinion piece in a psychiatric journal in 1967. It likened the relationship to a game, a power struggle. The two professions were occupying the same patient care "space," but they communicated indirectly and manipulatively, with little warmth or mutual supportlike a bad marriage.²

One response has been to reallocate tasks between the professions, and this week's journal reports several studies of such substitution. They contribute to the growing literature on the success of specialisation and delegation as strategies for avoiding the problems of collaboration.

The other response has emphasised . . . [Full text of this article]

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