Inter-professional working : professional perceptions in the context of healthy urban planning

• Main Author: Jenkinson, Karen Eileen May
• Published: Queen's University Belfast 2015
• Subjects: 307.1
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.679239

This thesis aims to establish the role of inter-professional working in healthy urban planning with an emphasis on individual perceptions. This is explored by focusing attention on the subjectivities of individuals within planning and public health to determine how they make sense of the concept of inter-professional working and to establish how they have responded to healthy urban planning and its inter-professional approach. This research followed a mixed methods approach embedded within four cities across the United Kingdom (UK) to increase quality and richness of understanding. Q Methodology and semi-structured interviews were adopted to explore the subjectivities of the planning and public health professionals. The two methods involved professionals in Belfast, the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, Cardiff and Glasgow. Key contributions of the research highlight diversity amongst planning and public health professionals in terms of how they make sense of the concept of inter-professional working. The diversity between their different viewpoints is significant for a theory of interprofessional working in healthy urban planning by showing how different aspects of the collaboration process drive the individual perceptions. The research suggests the two professional groups have responded positively to the promotion of interprofessionalism but it seems the individual professionals are embedded within organisations that limit but do not eliminate their control. Indeed, despite the challenges healthy urban planning brings to planning and public health it seems a way can be found through the differences between the two professional groups. It appears the diverse perceptions may influence the agency of individual professionals and they can build an effective collaborative relationship by embracing their different viewpoints, respecting the roles and expertise of the other professionals, and by capitalising on each other's particular skill sets.