Health and Social Care Policy and the Interprofessional ... - CAIPE

Code with the suffix ‘these are the shared values of all the United Kingdom
healthcare regulatory bodies’ (ibid: 3) leaving nurses and midwives in no
doubt that other health professions must aspire to the same expectations.
Partnership between patients or clients and the team that cares for them is
also emphasised (NMC, 2004b: Para 2.1) with the further mandate ‘you must
communicate effectively and share your knowledge, skill and expertise with
other members of the team as required for the benefit of patients and clients’
(Para 4.3). Keeping records is viewed as a team communication tool (Para
4.4) and the Code acknowledges that while ‘it is impractical to obtain consent
every time you need to share information with others’ (Para 5.1) nurses and
midwives must ‘guard against breaches of confidentiality by protecting
information from improper disclosure at all times’ (Para 5.1). In essence this
means that sharing information with others, whether they are nurses,
midwives or members of any other profession, must be justifiable in the best
interests of the patient.
There is one further reference in the Code to collaborative working with other
team members ‘in order to promote health care environments that are
conducive to safe, therapeutic and ethical practice’ (Para 8.1).
The UKCC first published the PREP Handbook in 2001 and this is reviewed
and updated by the NMC as new rules are implemented and evidence of best
practise emerges. The NMC while acknowledging that continuing professional
development (CPD) is ‘not a guarantee of competence, [it] is a key
component of clinical governance’ (NMC, 2006: 3).
PREP is a flexible framework that enables the practitioner to decide the CPD
which best meets their professional needs… ‘There is no such thing as
approved PREP (CPD) learning activity’ (ibid: 8). This flexibility thus enables
practitioners to pursue interprofessional, interagency learning and still meet
the PREP standard.
The NMC produces standards of proficiency for the various professionals they
represent. In the Standards of proficiency for pre registration nurse education
(NMC, 2004c), one of the standards expected is that every nurse can
‘demonstrate knowledge of effective inter-professional working practices
which respect and utilise the contributions of members of the health and
social care team’ (ibid: 5) with another being that the nurse can ‘Work in a
team with other nurses, and with medical and paramedical staff and social
workers related to the care of the particular type of patient with whom they are
likely to come into contact when registered at this level of the nurses’ part of
the register’ (ibid: 6).
One of the guiding principles for the standards of proficiency relates to the
management of care one aspect of which ‘involves the capacity to work
effectively within the nursing and wider multidisciplinary team, to accept
leadership roles within such teams, and to demonstrate overall competence in
care and case management’ (ibid: 14).
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