Theresa Fyffe believes we all need to speak the same language to ensure the best health and social care services for Scots

If there is one overriding thing that struck me at this week’s Royal College of Nursing Shared Care conference for professional leaders, it’s that everyone involved has the passion and drive to make health and social care integration work. And this is already happening to varying degrees across the country. However, what is also very apparent is that there is a huge amount to do to get everything off the ground by April 2016.

Now that the final countdown has begun, of the burning issues highlighted by professional leaders and then discussed at some length by conference delegates from all professions, including social work, nursing, pharmacy, doctors and allied health professionals, it is striking just how important it is to get language right from the very beginning.

It might seem obvious but the fact that some professions use the term service user, others use patient, and others use client exemplifies the very different angles from which the professions and services are coming at the same issues. Our different backgrounds and cultures mean we think of things very differently. This is something to be celebrated – we must not lose our professional identities as we all have something unique to contribute to the care of people, however we describe them – but we must do more to share understanding.

Bringing everyone together is going to mean a huge change in cultures and ways of working

Theresa Fyffe

What does network literacy mean to you? What is a patient pathway? If these phrases mean anything to you at all, they probably mean something different to the next person. We need to stop talking in jargon and use straightforward, clear and easy to understand language so that we don’t end up with crossed wires, at best, and in conflict, at worst. Either that or publish a glossary of terms to guide our way through integration!

What strikes me is just how important this shared language and understanding is to relationships, and how relationships can make a success (or a failure) of the best laid plans. And we’re not just meaning relationships between professional groups – it’s clear that a new approach to relationships between professionals and the people they are providing services and care for needs to be established. This means rebalancing power and information so it’s shared more equally and the person on the receiving end has a proper stake in their own care.

But it’s not just about professionals working differently with each other and with the people they care for. Organisations are going to have change their ways dramatically to bridge the divide between health and social care but also to work with the third sector, and the independent sector in a new and more effective way.

Bringing everyone together is going to mean a huge change in cultures and ways of working. And now is the time to start learning from each other, developing a genuinely shared understanding of what it is we want to achieve, and then rapidly gear up so that everyone is ready for April 2016. That is the way we’ll build on the passion and commitment of everyone involved, and that is how we will make a success of integrating health and social care.

Theresa Fyffe is director of the Royal College of Nursing Scotland