Summary of a CAIPE survey: Interprofessional education in health and social care in the United Kingdom

Background The drive towards interprofessional education springs from reforms in health and social care. Government policy statements, audit reports and official enquiries have called for closer collaboration within and between health and social care professions in community care, primary health care, health education, child protection, mental health and other fields. Interprofessional education has been commended to promote collaboration. As service needs and policy trends create greater pressure for interdisciplinary working, both managers and practitioners value it more highly and increasingly want to undertake shared learning. Another influence may be the need to counter trends towards elitism, rivalry and inflexibility resulting from the process of professionalisation. The educational context in which the interprofessional activity is developing is complex. Wide-ranging reforms in education and training are occurring. These include the integration of studies across professions which occurs when a number of different professional schools come into the same educational institution and with the extension of modularisation to include professional education. The expansion of open learning, the devolution of training budgets, the application of the purchaser/provider split and the extension of Scottish and National Vocational Qualifications to include professional education are other factors.