Should social care staff friend people they support on Facebook?

Should social care staff friend people they support on Facebook?

by | Apr 18, 2015 | social media | 2 comments

Should social care staff ever friend people they support on Facebook? According to this great paper by Peter Bates, Sam Smith and Robert Nisbet, the default view of social care staff and organisations is a resounding no. This stance is echoed in the proliferation of social media guidelines for health care practitioners that you can find curated here. The authors make a case for a more nuanced response to this question as explored through the lens of support for learning disabled people. They argue that the multi-faceted nature of people’s lives resists the reductive notion of linear personal/professional boundaries implicit within social media guidelines. I have previously blogged about the positive affordances of boundary violation between the personal and professional on online social networking sites.  The authors point to the value of digital inclusion and potential of social media for accessing information and peer support. These ideas are beautifully captured in the context of mental health in a guest post by @positivitysmile. I concur with the authors’ stance that a thoughtful approach to social media is required for health as well as social care practitioners. Use and ethics of social media are not routinely incorporated within practitioner training and in my view this should be integrated throughout the curriculum rather than either ignored or sidelined as a stand-alone session or module. As our online and offline lives become ever more intertwined, health and social care staff will benefit from a sharpened understanding of online social networking both for themselves and people they support. Facebook is not a neutral space I would like to add a few additional thoughts to those...
How does people-driven digital square up to NHS-led digital? #PdDigital15

How does people-driven digital square up to NHS-led digital? #PdDigital15

by | Apr 15, 2015 | #PdDigital15 | 0 comments

How does people-driven digital square up to NHS-led digital? This was a question considered by Paul Hodgkin in his final Power to the People column for E-Health Insider. You can find the full article here and below are a few snippets that illuminate some of the themes we are likely to be considering at #PdDigital15.   Citizen outspend the NHS on digital We spend a lot less in the NHS on digital technology that we do as citizens: So what have I learned? One signature theme is that NHS IT years are the reverse of dog years – if each human year is equal to seven dog’s years then the stuff that happens in the world of NHS IT is about 1/7th of that achieved by the citizenry. Just look at how much the NHS spends on IT kit compared with the citizenry. During the Connecting for Health campaign, the NHS spent around £1 billion per year on IT.   Meanwhile, the people – that’s you and me and pretty much everyone else – was spending a minimum of £400 per household per year on phones, broadband, tablets and PCs. With 25 million households that works out at a cool £100 billion over the same decade. NHS £1: Citizens £10.   Citizens doing it for ourselves Whilst the NHS is wrestling with huge barriers and challenges to digital technologies, citizens are doing it all anyway: Information governance, systems that don’t talk to each other, cultures that clash, organisations that compete when they should collaborate – all these are the very stuff of high transaction costs; which is just a...