Book review: Being Interprofessional

Being Interprofessional

★★★★

Marilyn Hammick, Della Freeth, Jeanette Copperman and DanëGoodsman, Polity Press

ISBN 9780745643069

Calls for better working across professions are commonplace, but resources to help professionals to achieve this are not.

Being Interprofessional offers some excellent practical guidance to assist those training to become public sector professionals to meet the need for successful collaborative practice.

A strength of the book isthe links it makes to other concepts that students will encounter in their qualifying courses – models of group formation, team roles, systems theory – and the way it applies these to working as part of a multi-disciplinary team.

The wide range of case examples used to illustrate points is another positive. There is child protection, of course, but also palliative care, domestic violence, mental health and more. A section on working with service users is less effective, but this is often the relationship practitioners find more straightforward.

This is an accessible book, with practical exercises throughout. The authors encourage readers to complete some activities in interprofessional learning groups.

Achieving combined interprofessional education is arguably what is really needed. But, in the absence of that,Being Interprofessional will equip students and practice assessors with a useful perspective on the skills and contexts that are the foundations of joined-up service responses.

Rob Fountain is head of training at short breaks charity the Shared Care Network

This article is published in the 24 September 2009 edition of Community Care