Service Users’ Involvement and Engagement in Interprofessional Care

Abstract

Interprofessional care is joint working between health care professionals by pooling their skills, knowledge and expertise, to make joint decisions and learn from each other for the benefits of service users and healthcare professionals. Service users involvement is considered as one of the important aspects of planning, management and decision making process in the delivery of health care to service users. Service users’ involvement is not the same as public involvement and partnership arrangements in health care. The active involvement and engagement of service users in health care positively contributes to improve quality of care, to promote better health and to shape the future of health services. Service users are always at the centre of health care professionals’ values, work ethics and roles. Moreover, service users centred interprofessional team collaboration is very important to deliver effective health services.

Keywords: interprofessional; service users; health care; benefits; collaboration. | PubMed