Joint working puts patients at centre

Those
who fear a health takeover of social care should see nurses as allies rather
than part of the threat, Royal College of Nursing general secretary Beverly
Malone said this week.

She
told a press conference at the congress that joint working was about putting
the patient or client at the centre of the picture and taking account of their
family context, culture and ethnicity.

"Then
all this has to be brought together in a beautiful marriage between nursing and
social care," she said.

But
she added that she was concerned about the lack of communication between
members of the multi-disciplinary team. "We all try to claim the patient
as our own, but it shouldn’t be about that."