Final Report > Chapter 25: Competent Healthcare Professionals > Broadening the notion of competence > The development of teamwork
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The development of teamwork
17 Healthcare professionals in hospitals have always worked in teams of one sort or another. These teams, however, have tended to be somewhat rigid and hierarchical. Until recently, an example would have been the team called the `firm' of a particular consultant. With the introduction of what are known as `care pathways' for patients suffering from certain illnesses, care is increasingly being organised around the needs of the patient, rather than around the institutional arrangements of the hospital, or of a group of professionals. This is undoubtedly the way of the future. Teamwork, therefore, will have to become increasingly more flexible, involving varying groups of professionals from a variety of disciplines and from a variety of specialties and organisations, all working together. And this will be so, as much in hospitals as in community and primary healthcare. All prospective healthcare professionals, therefore, must receive education and training in the meaning of teamwork, how to work effectively in multidisciplinary teams, how to deal with the issues of accountability which arise in teams, and the role of teams in providing healthcare. We owe this both to the professional and the patient. This education and training should not be confined only to the early years of preparation. Issues related to teamwork must also be included in specialist training. We note the comments during Phase One of Sir Barry Jackson, President of the Royal College of Surgeons:
`... there is teamworking ... between different specialties with similar interests for the patient ... But the concept of a formalising of that team approach between anaesthetists and surgeons and pathologists and radiologists per se so far as training purposes are concerned, has not been something that has been addressed by my College hitherto, or currently... and it may be that this is something which needs addressing in the future'. [10]
A similar point was made by the NHS Confederation in one of its papers to Phase Two: `Doctors are rarely trained to work in a multidisciplinary manner within a whole system ...'. [11] In our view, this is something which must be addressed.
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