Learning together-social work and nursing

Abstract

Current reforms, in particular Caring for People (Department of Health 1989a), The NHS and Community Care Act 1990, and Working for Patients (Department of Health 1989c, 1990), are generating new calls for interprofessional collaboration in the face of organizational fragmentation of care provision. Budgetary devolution and fund holding has altered the power between professions. Internal markets have introduced competition within which collaboration is somehow expected to coexist. The growth in provision by the private and voluntary sector, and the creation of NHS trusts, has put collaboration into a more complex inter-organizational context. At the same time, the ways in which the Government is responding to workforce issues that affect areas of professional activity and the reforms in vocational education alter the context of shared learning. The impact of National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) also need to be taken into account. Shared training between social workers and nurses has now gained a momentum in the field of learning disability. This paper charts the difficult development of collaborative training initiatives in that field and examines the broader policy context in which training and professional development is placed. The argument forwarded is that there are lessons to be learned from collaborative developments between social work and nursing in the field of learning disability, which could have wider application in other areas of professional activity.