Delivering integrated care: the role of the multidisciplinary team

Multidisciplinary teams (MDTs) are promoted as a means to enable practitioners and other professionals in health and social care to collaborate successfully. Research suggests that MDTs can be effective in meeting the needs of some populations. They are identified in SCIE’s Integration Logic Model as a core desire of what good integrated care looks like. Sufficient diversity of professions and disciplines, suitable leadership and team dynamics, and supportive organisations are important enablers.
Integrated care requires professionals and practitioners from across different sectors to work together around the needs of people, their families and their communities. Not working together results in a poor experience of care, a waste of resources and in some cases people suffering harm.
Teams which bring together the relevant professionals and practitioners are seen as an effective means to encourage better coordination of their work. Often these are labelled as ‘MDTs’ but are in fact often seeking to enable ‘inter’ or ‘trans’ working between different ‘professionals’ and ‘practitioners’. MDTs are encouraged (and in some cases mandated) by policy-makers in relation to different populations and needs