Role of Communication

Developing Effective Communication: Task One

Communication is about making contact with others and being understood. Health and Social care professionals use different forms of communication during their working day. Communication is defined by Douglas (2013) as the meaningful exchange of information between two or a group of individuals, it is an activity of conveying information through the exchange of thoughts, messages, or information, as by speech, visuals, signals, writing, or behaviour. These include the verbal communication skills of talking and listening, and various forms of non-verbal communication, such as touch, eye contact and facial expression.

A health and social care professional has to be competent in all forms of communication as they give and receive information, provide emotional support or carry out assessments of an individual’s care needs. In a survey conducted by Fallowfield and Jenkins (1999) they found out a nurse in an Oncology setting conducts close to 150 000 and 200 000 consultations with patients and their families within a career that spans over forty years. Thus, communication should be viewed as a core clinical skill that merits a considerable investment of time and resources in training.

Working in a health and social care setting involves communication with service users as well as other professionals in an inter-professional manner. Atwall and Caldwell (2002) states that when training and practising in health and social care different professions have a tendency to develop a communication culture and professional jargon. This can become a barrier to effective communication with both service users and other professions. They also feel it is important to learn effective communication from the outset. Fallowfield and Jenkins (1999) define effective communication as the successful interaction between patients and their health carers through giving adequate information that can be understood, believed, remembered and acted...