Interprofessional staff supervision in health and social care

This book is about what makes interprofessional supervision a success. There has been an international shift toward this form of supervision, driven by a broad consensus that multidisciplinary teams produce better outcomes for service users, combined with a cost saving agenda in which integrated working is seen as the key to increased financial efficiency. Yet it is an area where practice is ahead of the research; few studies have investigated how best to deliver effective supervision across disciplinary boundaries. What evidence exists tends to focus on services for children and there is a dearth of information on supervising staff working in adult services. This book represents an opportunity to address this gap in the evidence base and offers approaches to staff supervision from across a variety of different professional perspectives and practice settings. It draws together a unique blend of researchers, practitioners and service users who identify both the opportunities and challenges of interprofessional supervision, as well as explore what works best in which context, for whom and why. It is concerned with the outcomes of this type of supervision for organisations, workers and ultimately service users. Contributions cover social work, healthcare (including hospitals, nursing and midwifery), residential care, community learning disability, mental health and addiction services as well as supervision of personal assistants. The book looks beyond the UK and presents international evidence of the incidence and experience of interprofessional supervision with contributions from Canada and New Zealand. The book is divided into three sections. The first part provides an international overview of key research on interprofessional supervision. It includes an update on recent UK policy and practice developments as well as a discussion of service user involvement in staff supervision. The second section looks at innovative approaches to supervision and explores models developed in a variety of practice domains. The third section provides personal accounts of peoples’ experiences of this type of supervision and includes contributions from service managers and service users. It concludes with reflections on the core themes of the book, making suggestions for ‘where next?’ for research on supervision in adult services.