Developing Interprofessional Education in health and social care ...

develop sustainable abilities appropriate for the constantly evolving organisations insuccessful health services in the 21 st Century.The same year saw the publication of The Capable Practitioner by the SainsburyTrust - a framework of capabilities required for implementing the National ServiceFramework for Mental Health (Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health, 2001). TheTrust preferred the term „capability‟ to „competence‟.It defined capability as: A performance component identifying „what people need to possess‟ and„what they need to achieve‟ in the workplace An ethical component concerned with integrating a knowledge of culture, A component emphasising reflective practice in action The capability to effectively implement evidence-based interventions in theservice configurations of a modern mental health system A commitment to working with new models of professional practice andresponsibility for Lifelong LearningMeanwhile, work was in hand to apply competency-based thinking to IPE. Barr(1997; 184) distinguished between „common‟, „complementary‟ and „collaborative‟competences: Common: competences held in common between all professions Complementary: competences that distinguish one profession andcomplement those which distinguish other professions Collaborative: dimensions of competence which every profession needs tocollaborate within its own ranks, with other professions, with nonprofessionals,within organisations, between organisations, with patientsand their carers, volunteers and with community groupsBarr (1998 & 2002) went on to list collaborative competencies as being able to: Recognise and respect the roles, responsibilities and competence of otherprofessions in relation to one‟s own, knowing when, where and how toinvolve those others through agreed channels Work with other professions to review services, effect change, improvestandards, solve problems and resolve conflict in the provision of care andtreatment Work with other professions to assess, plan, provide and review care forindividual patients and support carers Tolerate differences, misunderstandings, ambiguities, shortcomings andunilateral change in another profession Enter into interdependent relationships, teaching and sustaining otherprofessions Learn from and be sustained by those other professions Facilitate interprofessional case conferences, meetings, team working andnetworkingHammick et al. (2009) summarised „first-post‟ competencies for being aninterprofessional practitioner as:Knowledge: understanding the role and working context of otherpractitioners and beginning to identify how these interrelate;16