Collaboration on integration requires mutual understanding of the language used. This may seem like commonsense, but it is surprising how many times communication is at the root of problems.
Clear communication about service redesign leads to better engagement and more meaningful feedback. It can also help to empower stakeholder groups that were previously unheard or sidelined.
Good practice in communicating about service redesign includes: describing services clearly and consistently; and using plain language instead of professional jargon, metaphors, euphemisms, acronyms and abbreviations. From our experience of enabling service user empowerment in a mental healthcare setting, we agreed recommendations for effective communication. They can be adapted and applied to any integration work in the NHS where stakeholders and collaborators come from difference professional backgrounds.
• Don’t hide behind a mask of professionalism.
• Don’t use words we don’t understand and avoid using jargon.
• Don’t pretend you know more than you do.
A clinician’s perspective: Dr Rustam Rea outlines his experiences engaging stakeholders in the integration of diabetes services in Oxfordshire
Stakeholders involved in the Oxfordshire Integrated Diabetes Care Programme come from a variety of backgrounds, including lay advisors, clinicians and commissioners. All of us have varied experiences, knowledge and assumptions about care and its delivery, and we use different language to talk about it. Even for us, clinicians working with patients with diabetes, misunderstandings can sometimes arise because we work across different specialties (diabetes, podiatry, dietetics, mental health) with different managerial responsibilities and in different service configurations.
Beware of jargon
We all use terms that may be understood by our team members, yet not familiar to others at all. At one of our programme meetings, for example, we had an agenda with ‘Diabetes LES’, ‘NADIA data, ‘NDPP update,’ and ‘ICT and informatics update’ and I would think many team members, but particularly patient representatives, were overwhelmed by this jargon. The use of initials, acronyms, euphemisms and jargon in the NHS can deliberately cloud, confuse or humiliate.
As clinicians, we understand that communicating with complete clarity is key in our clinical practice, and we should not underestimate its value when working with lay advisors, patients, and other healthcare practitioners on transforming services.