No / Objective: The increasing emphasis of interprofessional working (IPW) and learning (IPL) encourages healthcare professionals to be educated together. However, is the language and understanding clear and consistent across health care? ResearchQuestions: Is there a sound evidence base underpinning IPL/IPW? Do healthcare professionals and workforce arrangements support across professional working? Methodology: To answer these questions a detailed review was carried out investigating UK policy and educational developments in relation to international interprofessional research.Data Sources: Healthcare documents in relation to IPL from the UK Department of Health; World Health Organization; themes from international and European IPL networks/conferences, international healthcare journal article search (Metalib); UK Healthcare Commission documents; and UK healthcare statistics and data. Results:The definition of IPL and the associated IPL agenda within health is broad, which enables flexibility and creativity. However, this may also contribute to the weak evidence base which demonstrates the effectiveness of IPL.Conclusion: To focus the agenda on developing effective healthcare teams within an IPL framework would enable common understanding, language and evaluation processes.

Hälso- och sjukvården är en stor och komplex organisation med många professioner och yrkesgrupper bundna till sig. För att skapa en patientcentrerad vård krävs att dessa samarbetar i interprofessionella team. Syftet var att öka kunskapen om hur interprofessionellt arbetssätt kan utvecklas inom hälso- och sjukvården. En litteraturstudie genomfördes med 17 vetenskapliga artiklar som granskades, analyserades och sammanställdes. Resultatet visade att interprofessionellt arbetssätt kunde utvecklas inom hälso- och sjukvården genom studenters och verksam personals interprofessionella lärande och med hjälp av flera metoder. Studenterna kunde utbildas i högskole- eller universitetsmiljö genom teori och simuleringsövningar, under grundutbildningens praktikplacering eller på en klinisk träningsavdelning. Det framkom att en kombination av teori och praktik var en effektiv metod. Utveckling av arbetssättet genom verksam personal kunde ske genom simuleringsövning, utveckling av ett kliniskt lärandecenter eller genom samarbete kring forskning. Ett interprofessionellt arbetssätt bör utvecklas inom hälso- och sjukvården för att bidra till en patientcentrerad vård och till ett fungerande samarbete mellan professioner. Både verksam personal och hälso- och sjukvårdsstudenter bör utbildas kring interprofessionellt arbetssätt. Vidare forskning kring hur arbetssättet kan utvecklas inom hälso- och sjukvården efterfrågas, särskilt gällande utbildningsmetoder för verksam personal. / Health care is a large and complex organization with many professions and other professionals bound to the organization. The aim was to increase the knowledge about how interprofessional working can be developed within health care. A literature study was conducted with 17 scientific articles that were examined, analyzed and compiled. Results showed that interprofessional working could be developed within health care through the learning of students and working personnel and through different methods. The students could be educated in college- and university environment through theory and simulation exercises, during the internship placement or on an interprofessional training unit. It was found that a combination of theory and practice was an effective method. The development through working personnel could be done through simulation exercises, development of a clinical learning unit, or through collaboration around research. Interprofessional working should be developed within health care to contribute to a patient-centered care and to a functioning collaboration between professions. Both working personnel and health care students should be educated about the interprofessional working. Further research into how interprofessional working could be developed in health care is requested, particularly in the training methods for working personnel.

Yes / Safe and successful surgery depends on effective teamwork between professional groups, each playing their part in a complex division of labour. This article reports the first empirical examination of how introduction of robot-assisted surgery changes the division of labour within surgical teams and impacts teamwork and patient safety. Data collection and analysis was informed by realist principles. Interviews were conducted with surgical teams across nine UK hospitals and, in a multi-site case study across four hospitals, data were collected using a range of methods, including ethnographic observation, video recording and semi-structured interviews. Our findings reveal that as the robot enables the surgeon to do more, the surgical assistant's role becomes less clearly defined. Robot-assisted surgery also introduces new tasks for the surgical assistant and scrub practitioner, in terms of communicating information to the surgeon. However, the use of robot-assisted surgery does not redistribute work in a uniform way; contextual factors of individual experience and team relationships shape changes to the division of labour. For instance, in some situations, scrub practitioners take on the role of supporting inexperienced surgical assistants. These changes in the division of labour do not persist when team members return to operations that are not robot-assisted. This study contributes to wider literature on divisions of labour in healthcare and how this is impacted by the introduction of new technologies. In particular, we emphasise the need to pay attention to often neglected micro-level contextual factors. This can highlight behaviours that can be promoted to benefit patient care.

yes / The infrequency of sudden deaths means that professionals have limited exposure, making it difficult to gain experience and feel confident in their role. This meta-synthesis aims to synthesise qualitative research on the experience of professionals responding to cases of sudden or unexpected death. A systematic literature search was conducted using Academic Search Complete, CINHAL, Embase, psycINFO, PubMed and Web of Science, identifying ten papers for inclusion. Studies were appraised and synthesized using the principles of meta‐synthesis. Four superordinate themes were identified: perceptions of role, experience on scene, approaches to coping, and barriers to support. Findings suggest the way responders perceive their role and their experience on scene affect the approach taken to tasks and coping strategies used. The complexity of experience is often not acknowledged by responders or their colleagues. Experiences are compounded by cumulative factors which were expressed by different professional groups and across settings. Several barriers relating to workforce culture within organisations were identified, alongside the implications these have on staff wellbeing and the impact on bereaved families.

The demands on health and social care organisations require professions to work more collaboratively. During pre-registration training, health care and social work students learn within practice settings, supported by practice mentors. These settings are rich learning environments to experience interprofessional working (IPW) and for students to learn together through interprofessional practice learning (IPPL). There is, however, evidence that students' experiences of both are varied or limited. The value placed on IPW, and IPPL, is therefore of interest. This thesis will investigate practice mentors' attitudes to IPW and IPPL, and explore their perspectives of the enablers and barriers to these occurring in practice settings. A mixed-methods case study approach was used to measure the attitudes of practice mentors from health and social work, and to identify enablers and barriers to IPW, and IPPL for students. Online surveys and semi-structured face to face interviews were carried out with a range of professions within one Scottish health board and associated local authority. Results showed that attitudes to IPW, and IPPL for students were generally positive. Attitudes were not significantly affected by governing body, gender, area of work, years of experience, or prior experience of IPE. IPW was perceived to be enabled by shared processes and policies, IPPL for staff, effective communication, established teams, and shared processes and policies. Proximity to other professions and shared spaces encouraged informal communication and positive interprofessional relationships. Regular structured IPPL opportunities for students were limited. However, where opportunities did occur, this was linked to areas where practice mentors perceived that there was a strong interprofessional team identity. Although attitudes to IPW, and IPPL for students are positive, further work is needed to identify systems for improving IPW, to strengthen professions' identity as interprofessional teams, and to increase IPPL opportunities for students.