MDT's in action
A series of research and consultancy projects focused on improving team interactions and communication
Collated into a published book
An exploration of how manager meetings work.
A study and workshops of meeting talk and management to help to improve team relationships
Conversation Analysis based training in psychological safety in NHS teams
An exploration of how psychological interaction is managed in talk, and training around helpful phrases to use to generate a supportive context
How to discuss risk in teams
Various projects working with teams to analyse communications and identify practical suggestions of how managers and team members can enable more honest discussion and analysis of risk
Patient advocacy in intellectual disability healthcare teams
Analysis of how patients are ‘advocated for’ when they are absent, and how this can be used to develop and change decision making about patient care. Including individual team analysis and workshops.
The Need.
Multi-disciplinary teams (MDTs) are a means to enable practitioners and other professionals in health and social care to collaborate successfully. Team interactions and communication are crucial for this collaboration to be effective. However, teamwork can be challenging and include multiple misinterpretations. Interprofessional working can provide particular challenges as people have overlapping domains of responsibility, that they are differently trained to work with. A challenge for teams is how to bring together their expertise for the benefit of patients, and for the benefit of each other.
Our Response.
To develop a complex programme of research and interventions to explore how teams work and suggest how better understanding of conversation level communication can be used in team development. The book charts the entire project and includes a suggested approach that could be transferred to additional contexts.