As inter-agency working has grown increasingly important within UK public services, inter-professional education (IPE) has been perceived as a solution to a number of the practical difficulties associated with this way of working. Particularly, IPE is regarded as crucial within areas such as safe guarding children, community mental health services, older people’s services and services for disabled children where the quality of care needs to be delivered by seamless multi-professional teams. Written by leading specialists in the field, this book provides a thorough introduction to IPE in health and social care, examining the issues in detail and providing much needed practical advice. The authors summarise recent trends in policy, establish what we can learn from research and practice and provides readers with an essential set of IPE ‘do’s and don’ts’. It will be a core text for undergraduate and post-qualifying interprofessional students on health and social care courses, as well a students of nursing, social work, social policy and medicine.

The idea that professionals in health and social care should ‘learn together to work together’ in ‘interprofessional education’ (IPE) is not new. Nevertheless, interest in this concept has grown dramatically. By learning together, professions will better understand each other and value what others bring to the practice of collaboration. Through working together more effectively, the quality of care and outcomes for users will be improved, but what is the evidence to support this? How can effective and sustainable IPE programmes be designed and run? What theoretical perspectives are useful? How can programmes be evaluated? This essential guide provides a thorough introduction to IPE in health and social care. It examines the research on IPE in detail, providing muchneeded practical advice. This second edition includes updates to research and policy internationally, examples of successful programmes and methods of evaluation, and provides readers with an essential set of IPE ‘do’s and don’ts’.