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Leadership in Enhancing Healthcare Support Assignment Sample
The selected service improvement is the introduction of school liaison officer for the BAME children who fall under the age group of 13-17 years old to enhance their accessibility to professional therapy for the mental health conditions. This change is necessary as several instances have emerged where the students of the BAME community have suffered from mental pressure due to their inability in coping up with the academic stress and cultural shock (Arday, 2018). This issue is driven by the fact that they did not know about the administrative personnel to whom they can confide in about their mental health. It is evidenced by the fact that the 40% of students from the BAME community have suffered from mental health issue due to lack of administrative support. This adverse situations demands the change of integrating school liaison officer within the student support services as they are responsible for supporting the mental health and providing positive experience for the students. The practice of school liaison officer should be to support the students with their academic prospect by providing them with the referrals to special education sources qualified staff who can treat mental health issues (Department of Health, 2015). One of the major benefits of the change is that they it provides the students with the opportunity to improve their mental health outcome and improve self-esteem (Johnspence, 2023). Another benefit of the change is that the appropriate therapeutic intervention could be suggested by considering the culturally sensitive elements for the BAME community (Department of Health, 2015).
Role of nurse and importance of 4p to their role in service improvement
The role of the nurse in the service improvement of introducing school liaison officer is to keep track of the students’ mental health and report to the school liaison officer if any students is suffering mental pain. This role is in alignment with the pain element of the 4p of nursing as it indicates the assessment of patient’s pain level as a responsibility of the nurse (Negarandeh et al., 2014). This role is important as it helps in identifying the students with mental heat needs more efficiently and increase the response time of the liaison officer to check in on the patient. Therefore, the role of the nurse is of extreme significance to the service improvement. The nurse’s role is also to identify the basic needs of the students from the BAME community suffering from mental health issues and report them back to the school liaison officer, which could then be assessed by the school liaison officer to identify if the students’ needs to be referred to a specialist in mental healthcare or it can be addressed by the counselling session that is organised by school liaison officer. This role of the nurses is in alignment with the personal needs element of 4p in nursing as it indicates that the primary responsibility of nurse is to check the patient’ needs. Therefore, the role of nurse carries importance when it comes to integrate the service changes of introducing school liaison officer.
Challenges in the nurse’s role and strategies to overcome these issues to drive service improvement
One of the major challenges that the nurses can face in the role of service improvement is that they students might be apprehensive of letting the nurses know about their mental condition due to cultural and social barriers. However, the challenge can be addressed by informing them about how other students, who are belonging from the same cultural background have expressed about their mental health issues and reassuring them of the fact that mental health problem is not a social or cultural stigma. Another challenge that might arise is that the nurse is unable to identify their mental needs due to communication gap. However, the existence of such issues can be mitigated by the nurse’s initiative of communicating the students in their native language to recognise their mental condition properly. Therefore, it is understood that the nurses are well equipped to overcome the challenge of advancing service improvement.
Quality Improvement tool: PDSA
The PDSA model will be used as quality improvement tool for the service improvement by applying the study phase of the PDSA in order to generate the KPI of the incident response rate and effective referral percentage and compare it with the industry benchmark to assess the performance of the school liaison officer. It is because the change of introducing the school liaison officer can only be deemed to be successful if their performance in addressing mental health issues are compared with benchmarks which requires constant monitoring and such requirement is the PDSA tool. It is because PDSA tool is known for its efficacy in monitoring workflow process and services with help of KPI as benchmarks. Coury et al. (2017) have supported that the application of PDSA model has been effective in improving performance by setting appropriate KPI and bring in changes within healthcare setting. On the contrary, Reed and Card (2016) have argued that use of the PDSA model makes it difficult for the alignment of the KPI with the pareto chart. This served as a limitation and this limitation was addressed by replacing the pareto chart with the control chart as it provides a better graphical representation of the rating scale indices.
Leadership style – Transformational
The transformational leadership model is utilised as the leadership style for bringing in the changes of introducing school liaison officer in the student support services. It is because the change will only reflect on beneficial outcomes if the BAME community students are well informed about the service and are encouraged to step forward in sharing their mental health problems, which requires proper interaction, motivation and such aspects are met by the transformational leadership style. It is because the leadership style is vested with the benefits of imparting transparency in interaction and generating motivation among the audience. While deploying the changes, a seminar was organised where the students from the BAME community were invited and the school liaison officer interacted with the students about the importance of mental health and motivated them to addressing health issues with immediate attention. This behaviour is in alignment with the transformational leadership style due to the use of transparent interaction. Susilo (2018) has supported that transformational leadership style has a positive influence on motivating individuals through effective interaction. On the contrary, Lin et al. (2019) have argued that the transformational leaders could be bring in lack of focus and tendency to disrupt routines for themselves and amongst the followers and is one of the major weaknesses. In an attempt to address such limitation, the school liaison officer will conduct a weekly check-up among the BAME students who are suffering from mental health problems about their adherence to the routine in consuming the prescribed drug.
Team Management: Belbin’s model
The Belbin Model will be used for assessing the team management factors to bring in the changes of integrating school liaison within the services. This is important as the school liaison officer will only be able to solve complex mental aberrations within the support service team if a candidate with high creative thinking capacity is selected for that role and such requirements are met by Belbin Team roles. It is because the Belbin team role helps in such selection with the existence of nine unique roles that could be used to elect the most appropriate candidate for that purpose within the student support team. In this case, the plant role has been applied to select the candidate for school liaison officer as the characteristics of plant role in terms of innovation capacity is responsible for evaluating the school liaison officer’s capacity to compute improvised referrals for complex mental health problems for BAME community. Bednár and Bednár (2020) have supported that the plant role in Belbin team role has been proficient in improving the innovative output from teams Therefore, the Belbin model has played a key role in team management.
Change theory: Lewin’s Unfreeze, Movement, Refreeze model
Kurt lewin change theory has been used for driving this change. It is because this change of service is a disruptive one within the student support team which would bring in resistance for adopting the change and such resistance can be met by Kurt lewin change management model. It is because the model is bestowed with the advantage of breaking down the resilience to align with changes through the integration of extensive stakeholder participation. During the Unfreeze stage, the school administration will organise conferences and seminars to inform the BAME community students and support teams about the introduction of school liaison officer and its benefits. In the Movement stage, the school liaison officer will be appointed and introduced to the BAME community through a formal meeting. In this stage, the roles and responsibilities of school liaison officers in terms of referral and tending to mental health case will be explained. In the refreeze stage, suggestion is procured from the BAME community students about the contribution of the school liaison officers in solving their mental health problems and instigating the suggestion within the referral and intervention processes. Manchester (2014) has supported that the adoption of Lewin change management model has been effective in healthcare setting due to its ease of application and bringing down resilient attitudes to changes in services. On the contrary, Pawar and Charak (2017) have argued that the Lewin change management model is vested with the adversity of causing a split among the employees. In order to mitigate such limitation, the support of the school liaison officer, the student support team and BAME community student for the change will be evaluated through weekly discussion forum session.
Conflict resolution: Ellis Stage of Managing Conflict
The de-escalation conflict management is applied while introducing the change of the school liaison officers by applying the active listening and empathising skills as a part of the de-escalation strategy by the school liaison officer. It is because, during the initial stages of the change, the school liaison officer might come across students in the BAME community, whose severe depression might elicit violent behaviour during the treatment and such advents of violent behaviour is addressed by de-escalation conflict management. It is because the conflict management strategy is efficient in neutralising aggressive behaviour with the tactics of active listening. Baig (2017) have supported that the active listening skills are one of the major strengths of the de-escalation strategy and is helpful in addressing the violent attitudes of the patients who are suffering mental problems. On the contrary, Price et al. (2018) has argued that the de-escalation strategy often imbibes a sceptic mindset amongst the employees about the potential aggressive behaviour. This will be resolved by conducting stakeholder engagement where the school liaison officer will educate about the difference in the indicators of violent and non-violent behaviour.
Stakeholder’s analysis – Thomas Kilmann model
The Thomas Kilmann model is used for sustaining the change of integrating school liaison officer by applying the collobartive and compromising elements to deliever personalised intervention for the mental health issues like acute depression and anxiety among the BAME students. It is because such personalised intervention might necessitate the need of extra care which would influence the school liaison officer to work outside their working hours for looking after the mentally susceptible students which would require self-sacrifice and such requirements are met by the accommodating attitudes of the stakeholder. It is because the accommodating element in the Thomas Kilmann model promotes the self-sacrifice attitudes within the individuals to serve to the interest of others at the cost of their personal concern. The BAME community students will be directly influenced by the change. It is because the school liaison officer is being brought in specifically for the mental health problems of BAME community.
Critically analyse contemporary law and policy for the service improvement
The adoption of the Equality Act 2010 has been effective when it comes to improving the contribution of the school liaison officer. It is because it provides the school liaison officer with the authority to register a formal complaint about a student who is accused of causing mental stress to the students of the minority community. It is because the section states that the mental health and ethnic minorities fall under the protected characteristics. As per the section of Equality ACT 2010 “taking action to which section 158 would apply if references in that section to persons who share (or do not share) a protected characteristic were references to disabled persons (or persons who are not disabled) and the reference to the characteristic were a reference to disability” (Gov, 2023). Therefore, it is observed that the Equality ACT 2010 implies a positive influence on integrating the service improvement of introducing the school liaison officer. On the contrary, Boardman and Parsonage (2019) have opposed that the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines have been more assertive in securing the mental health. The prevalence of such opinions is attributed to the fact that the nursing leaders should set clear vision that advocates the undermining of the discrimination of the cultural and social background in terms of healthcare access, in addition to ethnic minorities. As per the section 1.8.1 of the NICE (2015), it is stated that “a clear vision which can be explained and made relevant to employees… ensuring employees share the same motivation This expectation may be challenged by group dynamics, some employees’ personal beliefs and attitudes which may stifle motivation and hinder progress”. This is effective for integrating the school liaison officer as this guideline will be used to assert the basic roles when it comes to tending to the care of students in BAME community. From the comparison, it is concluded that the Equality Act 2010 and NICE 2015 has moderate effect on driving the service improvement.
References
- Arday, J., 2018. Understanding mental health: what are the issues for black and ethnic minority students at university?. Social Sciences, 7(10), p.196.
- Baig, L., Tanzil, S., Shaikh, S., Hashmi, I., Khan, M.A. and Polkowski, M., 2018. Effectiveness of training on de-escalation of violence and management of aggressive behavior faced by health care providers in a public sector hospital of Karachi. Pakistan journal of medical sciences, 34(2), p.294.
- Boardman, J. and Parsonage, M., 2009. Government policy and the National Service Framework for Mental Health: modelling and costing services in England. Advances in psychiatric treatment, 15(3), pp.230-240.
- Coury, J., Schneider, J.L., Rivelli, J.S., Petrik, A.F., Seibel, E., D’Agostini, B., Taplin, S.H., Green, B.B. and Coronado, G.D., 2017. Applying the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) approach to a large pragmatic study involving safety net clinics. BMC health services research, 17, pp.1-10.
- Department of Health. 2015. NHS Long Term Plan. London. Department of Health
- Gov. 2023. Available at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/part/5/chapter/1/crossheading/recruitment (Accessed: 20 July 2023).
- Johnspence. 2023. Available at: https://www.johnspence.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Home-School-Liasion-Officer_Job-Description.pdf (Accessed: 20 July 2023).
- Lin, S.H., Scott, B.A. and Matta, F.K., 2019. The dark side of transformational leader behaviors for leaders themselves: A conservation of resources perspective. Academy of Management Journal, 62(5), pp.1556-1582.
Bednár, R. and Ljudvigová, I., 2020. Belbin team roles in a start-up team. In SHS Web of Conferences (Vol. 83, p. 01002). EDP Sciences.
- Manchester, J., Gray-Miceli, D.L., Metcalf, J.A., Paolini, C.A., Napier, A.H., Coogle, C.L. and Owens, M.G., 2014. Facilitating Lewin's change model with collaborative evaluation in promoting evidence based practices of health professionals. Evaluation and program planning, 47, pp.82-90.
- Northouse, P. 2019. Leadership: Theory and Practice. Thusand Oaks: Sage
- Pawar, A. and Charak, K., 2017. Study on adaptability of change management: review of Kurt Lewins and Kotter model of change. Research Revolution International Journal of Social Science and Management, 5(4), pp.79-83.
- Price, O., Baker, J., Bee, P., Grundy, A., Scott, A., Butler, D., Cree, L. and Lovell, K., 2018. Patient perspectives on barriers and enablers to the use and effectiveness of de?escalation techniques for the management of violence and aggression in mental health settings. Journal of advanced nursing, 74(3), pp.614-625.
- Reed, J.E. and Card, A.J., 2016. The problem with plan-do-study-act cycles. BMJ quality & safety, 25(3), pp.147-152.
- Susilo, D., 2018. Transformational leadership: a style of motivating employees. MEC-J (Management and Economics Journal), 2(2), pp.109-116.
