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Multidisciplinary teams and line management

Practical problems and areas of conflict in clinical psychiatry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Som D. Soni
Affiliation:
Hope and Prestwich Hospitals, Eccles Old Road, Salford, M6 8HD (correspondence)
Leonard Steers
Affiliation:
City of Salford Social Services, Crompton House, Chorley Road, Swinton, Salford M27 2BP
Tony Warne
Affiliation:
Prestwich and Hope Hospitals, Bury New Road, Prestwich, Manchester M25 7BL
W. H. Sang
Affiliation:
Prestwich Hospital
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Recent developments in psychiatry have required increased inter-disciplinary collaboration to ensure co-ordination of specialist skills. Simultaneously, changes in management structures of participating disciplines have produced vertically organised systems of management with multiple tiers often referred to as line management. The membership of multidisciplinary teams (MDTs) now comprises individuals at varying levels in management hierarchy and with different abilities to contribute to the decision making process. Managers usually impose attitudes, expectations and obligations on staff working in MDTs which are often major obstacles to effective teamwork by causing ambivalence and opposing loyalties leaving individual workers in invidious positions (Fagin, 1985). This paper reviews current thinking on multidisciplinary teams and present day management structures among disciplines in psychiatry and discusses the practical problems and areas of conflict resulting from their interaction in settings where MDTs are expected to operate.

Type
Articles
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1989

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