ABSTRACT

From contact with a number of people in different parts of the world, in particular Australia, Sweden and the USA, it seems that there is a model of handovers for shift systems which is shared across many countries. What’s more, people involved in shift systems in these countries all seem to acknowledge that, although their handover system has been more or less the same for many years, it has been a profoundly unsatisfying system. Dissatisfaction arises from the emphasis being placed on content rather than process, which has often contributed to staff becoming insular, with a tendency to dwell on the minutiae of living rather than developing an understanding of patterns which lead to a more effective form of intervention around the minutiae. It is also easier to unintentionally adopt a ‘blaming’ stance when concentrating on content. For example, if a 15- year old is rude to one of the staff the incident can be addressed all too easily at the content level and lead the member of staff to feel that the only explanation for the young person’s behaviour lies within that young person. Whitehead and Russell (1910) said that every communication has within it a statement and a statement about that statement. (Put another way — what’s the message behind the message) All too often the latter gets forgotten when issues are addressed with residents or 6patients. Staff can then get caught up in ‘blaming’, not out of any malice, but because they get involved in a ‘cause and effect’ pattern and this gets carried across into other shifts at handover.