Health Problems Related to Sexual Health in the U.K - Coursework Example

Health Problems Related to Sexual Health in U.K By Health promotion is a behavioral social science that relates from the biological, environmental, psychological, physical and medical sciences to promote health and prevent diseases, disabilities and premature death through education driven voluntary behavior change activities. It is the development of an individual, group, institutional, community and systematic strategies to help improve health knowledge, attitude, skills and behavior. The purpose of health promotion is to positively make changes to the health behavior of the society and individuals and also the living and working conditions that affects their health. Sexual health is the state of physical, emotional, mental and social wellbeing related to sexuality. It is not the absence of diseases. Sexual health requires a positive and respectful approach to sexuality and sexual relationships. In order to attain and maintain sexual health, the sexual rights of a person must be respected. Sexual health should be taken as a human right and an important resource. For better health sexual health has to be an integral part of any comprehensive primary healthcare approach (Welling 2010). In the United Kingdom the stage is set for health promotion to bring about better partnerships and effective actions for health promotion at the national as well as global level. Health promotion development has been influenced by key changes in society in both Developed and developing countries. Significant influences have come to the fore such as poverty, violence and mental health; new diseases needs response such as HIV/AIDS, new social forces such as globalization, significantly impact health. Changing health burden and complex determinants of health has become a problem. The United Kingdom is facing a growing proportion of elderly and a population with more chronic conditions and non-communicable diseases. Basically the Unite Kingdom is facing multiple, rather than a single type of health burden. Widening health gaps, within and between societies, is a global concern. World Health Organization has appointed the Commission on Social Determinants and Health to take leadership for a process to increase equity in health. Communications for the promotion of health can be powerful and enhance health literacy. There is need to respond to the marketing of unhealthy products and lifestyles. Increasing and expanding democratization in the United Kingdom has affected development, health promotion focus should drive actions in creating healthy public policies and community empowerment. Globalization is a fact of our time, but ways have to be found to harness its disadvantages and make it health friendly (Sarah 2009). The government of United Kingdom has tried to come up with policies that cub this problem. Through health public policies the ministry of health has a special responsibility to initiate and orchestrate the multi-sectorial dimension of such policies. The government of United Kingdom is also making sure that health promotion is achieved not just by the health workers but also by other sectors of the society. These are the other sector: policymakers, private commercial sector, academic and research community, civic groups, N G O’S and the community at large. The government of United Kingdom has tried to offer mechanisms and infrastructures that are used in health promotion. Problems related to health promotion in primary medical care are reviewed within the framework of five characteristics of current medical practice: physician attitudes and beliefs, the economic structure of medical care, the structure of the medical-care encounter, the state of the art of health promotion, and physician knowledge and skills. The potential for integrating health promotion activities into the primary medical-care environment is based on the principles of pediatrics, general internal medicine, family practice, and obstetrics/gynecology. In the primary-care setting, both the roles and the expectations of physicians and patients are conductive to health promotion activities. Practice principles for the primary physician are discussed, touching on such issues as style of communication, recognition of the "teachable moment," utilization of the longitudinally of the physician-patient relationship, coordination of care, and causes of failure. Issues for the future are reviewed, including the need for restructuring fee schedules, pursuing the knowledge base required for effective health promotion, and integrating training in health promotion methods and techniques in medical school curricula (Michael 2012). Health Promotion The health promotion indicator subset covers important areas of health-related behavior that are typically targeted by health education and patient awareness and outreach campaigns. These include smoking, obesity, physical exercise, sexually transmitted diseases, and abortion. In addition, diabetes prevalence was included to reflect the policy importance of the emerging epidemic of diabetes mellitus, and the fact that this indicator was not included within the diabetes indicator set. Preventive Care The preventive care subset contains a high proportion of indicators relating to pre- and prenatal care, including blood typing, screening for antibodies, anemia, cervical gonorrhea, hepatitis B, HIV, and bacteria, and low birth weight rates. The remaining indicators all relate to vaccination and include hospital admissions with immunizable conditions, adolescent immunization rates, and immunization for hepatitis B, influenza, and pneumococcal in high-risk groups. Preventive indicators in disease areas such as diabetes and heart disease were considered by the respective expert panels in each condition-specific area. Clinical Primary Care The clinical primary care subset contains indicators describing the diagnosis and management of hypertension, the management of congestive heart failure, smoking cessation rates for patients with asthma, and an aggregated indicator describing hospitalization rates for conditions usually managed in primary care (Laura 2012). The government of the United Kingdom has been trying to implement the above in promoting health but it has not yet achieved all of this but it has got good strategies towards promoting quality healthcare. It is a good system and the government is trying to provide the infrastructure needed to promote health. Issues related to poverty and violence has been a threat to the health promotion and this factor has largely affected the sexual health. The social determinants in life are things like where we were born, where we grow, age, where we work and where we live. The environment also plays a major role in life and it all this factors affect our sexual health since genes and lifestyles are developed via the same factors. Other factors include education, economics stability, employment status and racism. Health practitioners, health promotion staff, youth and community workers in the delivery of sexual health education and services to young people. A fairly comprehensive response to young peoples sexual health needs can be offered by the collaboration of these agencies. Each agency has to make positive use of their distinctive roles, skills, knowledge and approaches to provide a coherent and developmental program of education and services for young people since they are the most affected when it comes to sexual health. Studies in inter-agency are indicating that effective collaboration is aided by shared aims, mutual respect, and good working relationships. A key finding of this research is that, in the field of sexual health, shared aims and mutual respect among the participants can be achieved by slowly nurtured relationships growing from a clear personal incentive to collaborate. However, this strong interpersonal network was linked with a lack of cross-agency planning at a management level. The challenge is to combine a strategic approach without losing the genuine commitment of participating staff. Interagency requires collaboration between agencies in order to meet the needs of the local citizens (Jennie 2010.The national health services in conjunction with the government of the United Kingdom and the local authorities have a mandate of working together to be successful in the health sector. For joint working several issues have to be addressed after collaboration has been achieved. This includes resource exchange, user involvement, leadership and co-ordinate activity. The objectives of inter-agency are: Reduce human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmission: this is aimed at ensuring safe blood transfusion practices, facilitate and enforce respect for standard precautions, make free condoms available. The other objective is to prevent and manage the consequences of sexual violence and poverty in the United Kingdom : this ensures that: good measures are put in place to protect populations from sexual violence, make clinical care available for survivors of rape, ensure the community is aware of the available clinical services Sexual violence and abuse puts women and girls. In the United Kingdom lives at risk and have serious consequences on their health and wellbeing of citizens. More than one in four women (4.8 million) aged between 16 and 59 have been affected by domestic abuse. Women who have experienced domestic violence are raped within their abusive relationship. The other objective is to prevent excess neonatal and maternal morbidity and mortality. This happens to ensure availability of supplies to manage obstetric and newborn complications at health facilities, provide clean delivery kits to visibly pregnant women and birth attendants for use in home deliveries when access to a health facility is not possible, establishment of a referral system to facilitate transport and communication. The last objective is to plan for the provision of comprehensive reproductive health services as soon as the situation permits (Stephen 2013). Advantages of Inter-Agency and Partnership I. Flexible and responsive policy solutions explains how most regularly deployed argument in favor of partnership-based approaches is that the problem of social and labor market exclusion is complex and multi-dimensional, requiring a range of inputs from stakeholders. II. Facilitating innovation and evaluation Partnerships arguably have greater scope to test new and innovative approaches – the fact that stakeholders come together from a range of different policy perspectives can, in it, produce greater dynamism through the sharing of ideas, expertise and practice. III. Sharing knowledge, expertise and resources A defining feature of any inter-agency partnership is the manner in which skills, knowledge and expertise are shared in order to maximize the appropriateness, quality and efficiency of provision. IV. Pooling of resources, synergy and ‘bending the spend’ At the most basic level, partnership-based approaches can increase the total level of resources brought to bear on problems, by increasing the number of budget-holding organizations involved in delivering solutions. Synergy may also be achieved through combining complementary resources from different organizations. V. Developing a coherent service where partnership working at the strategic level can ensure that policy initiatives in major areas of government activity are ‘aligned’. The drive to achieve coherent local and regional frameworks linking regeneration and employability policies has been a major theme of recent reforms. VI. Improving efficiency and accountability: One of the key benefits associated with effective inter-agency co-operation is that it can lead to more efficient policy delivery, by eliminating the duplication of effort and improving communications. Within partnerships, inter-agency bodies have the capacity to be more democratic. VII. Capacity building Examples of best practice in regeneration projects in England have demonstrated that local partnerships can build community capacity and engender a sense of community ownership. For the voluntary sector, inter-agency co-operation (particularly with government) offers new opportunities to have a practical impact on the policy agenda, enabling organizations to fulfill the key objectives of representing the community and giving voice to the concerns of disadvantaged groups. Disadvantages of Inter-Agency and Partnership I. Conflict over goals and objectives: A lack of clear, specific aims or goals is often cited as a major cause of the failure of partnerships. Many partnerships have agreed broad aims, but their detailed goals may be unclear or the partners may have differing understandings of what the goals mean. II. Resources costs: There are considerable resources costs, for instance in terms of staff time in meetings and discussions and making agreements, and in delays to decisions Inter-agency Co-Operation on Employability - Employment Research Institute due to consultation with partners. III. Responsibility: There can also be problems of accountability as no single partner feels fully accountable for the actions of the partnership due to the split between responsibility and control. IV. Impacts upon other services: Partnerships (especially those with separate implementation units) may be seen as an alternative to re-aligning mainstream services to deal with the issues. But the scale of, and integration between, mainstream services may be far more significant, especially in the long-term. V. Capacity gaps: There can be problems when government seeks to engage different sectors in delivering on employability, if key stakeholders lack the professional, organizational or financial capacity to contribute. There have been problems where government of the United Kingdom has sought to outsource provision before sufficient private or voluntary sector capacity is available. VI. Differences in attitude among partners: Finally, there may be significant differences in philosophy between the partners, such as in the degree to which they feel the market can solve problems around employability or the legitimate role of different stakeholders. There may be problems in combining public and private management practices and philosophies within one partnership organization, while the extent to which formal contracting is a sound basis for inter-agency co-Inter-agency Co-Operation on Employability - Employment Research Institute operation has been debate. However, where stakeholders are required to be both actors within a purchaser-provider contract and strategic partners there may be a confusion of roles and incentives. It has also been suggested that the strict obligations associated with contractual relations can stifle some innovation. VII. The handling of differences in the relative power of different bodies in a partnership is important to its success. The presence of unequal power should not imply that all partners should necessarily have equal power. Some may have greater legitimate claim, due for instance to their greater involvement in the area, or have greater political legitimacy in the case of elected bodies. Although there are different types of power, greatest power generally rests with those controlling resources. They are likely to dominate those in the local area who may have a considerable understanding of what is relevant and effective, albeit from a local rather than macro-perspective, and whose feeling of ‘ownership’ can be crucial to the initiatives success (peter 2012). Objectives of Inter-Agency The United Kingdom government is ensuring that levels of public funding for health care are adequate, public revenue flows are predictable and revenue is raised in a way that does not unfairly burden households is essential to safeguarding equitable access to needed health services. The extent to which having a smaller budget for health care is problematic as depends on a range of factors in addition to the magnitude, timing and duration of budgetary reductions. The United Kingdom is likely to find it difficult to cope with budget shortfalls if demand for publicly financed health care is rising; entitlement to publicly financed health care this means tested and incomes are falling; automatic stabilizers are absent; and public spending as a share of total spending on health care is low. This is how the economy affects health. The government of .the United Kingdom has achieved the objectives of inter agency since it has demonstrated that local partnerships can build community though it has had to succumb too many challenges. The government has also achieved flexible and responsive policy solutions. The government has been able to increase efficiency and accountability (David 2012). In the United Kingdom consideration must also be given to the collaboration between organizations rather than the professionals within them for example, looking at the local authority adult and community service rather than the social worker. It should involve an awareness of the different cultures and working practices within organizations and investigate how the resourcing and priorities affect staff. In care provision, service users and careers may have complex needs requiring different types of help provided by a range of agencies. Even when groups of agencies are organized to work together, such as in an intermediate care team, collaboration between professionals is essential to the successful provision of care in the United Kingdom (Kathy 2011). . Reference List David, E 2012, Sexual Health, ABC-CLIO. Copyright, New York Gina M, Wingood, Ralph J 2013, Handbook on Women’s Sexual Reproductive Health, Springer. Copyright, New York Jennie, N, Jane W 2010, Foundations for Health Promotion, Elsevier Health Sciences. Copyright. New York Kathy, F 2011, Sexual Health, Wiley and Son’s Copyright, New York Laura, S, Green, John Mcluskey 2012, the Sexual Health of Men, Radcliffe Publishing Copyright. Texas Michael, P 2012, Health Promotion in the Workplace, Cengage Learning. Copyright, New York Peter, a 2012, Routledge Handbook of Sexuality, Health and Rights, Routledge.Copyright, California Rachael, D 2009, Health Promotion: Global Principles and Practice, CABI. Copyright. Texas Robi, B, Gordon, M, 2010, Health Promotion: Disciplines and Diversity, Rutledge. New York Sarah, B, Alison, W 2009, Intergrated Contraceptive and Sexual Healthcare, Radicliffe Publishing. Copyright, New York Stephen P, Jonathan, V 2013, Researching Health Promotion, Routledge, Copyright. California Wellings, Kaye, Mitchell, Kirstin, Collumbein, Martine, 2010, Sexual Health: A Public Health Perspective, Open University Press Mc Graw-Hill International. Copyright, New York Read More