Poor teamwork skills in healthcare have been found to be a contributing cause of negative incidents in patient care, whilst effective teamwork has been linked to more positive patient outcomes. The aim of this research is to explore views of patients and informal caregivers on the key characteristics of effective healthcare teams and their experiences of healthcare teams using a qualitative approach. A focus group schedule was developed from existing literature to explore this. Topics included the purpose and value of teams in patient care, key attributes and their impact on patient care. Patients and informal caregivers were recruited via convenience sampling. Three focus groups were conducted. Thematic analysis identified a number of themes associated with effective teams. These themes included the perceived purpose of teams, perceptions about the structure of a team, team-based communication, the role of patients, delivery of care. Research participants noted the importance of key characteristics in effective teams, but felt that these were not always consistently present. Communication was considered to be the most important attribute in team working and also appeared to be the area in which the patient experience can be significantly improved. It is clear from the findings of this research that further improvements in teamwork skills in healthcare are needed to achieve effective collaborative practice, sustainable service delivery models and optimal patient care.

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This article reports on an observation-based evaluation of studentÁtutor interaction in first-year undergraduate tutorials. Using a single case analysis, the paper looks at how tutors and students built and maintained relationships through two different though interlinked forms of interaction Á storytelling and the use of classroom space for communicative purposes. It argues that interactional factors such as these should be explored alongside other more traditional forms of course evaluation. By explicitly recognising the interactional demands placed on tutors and students, the paper suggests that it will be easier to ensure that tutorials are properly inclusive of the diverse range of students who have access to higher education. IntroductionThe contours of the UK's higher education system have changed substantially over the last 25 years, as a result of the drive towards mass-participation. With around 50% of the population engaging in university-level education at some point, there has been a profound shift in the way in which universities approach the business of teaching and learning. As UK universities rely on undergraduate tutorials for many aspects of course delivery, it has become increasingly important to ensure that tutorials genuinely include a wider diversity of students.It remains less than clear, however, what inclusion in tutorial settings requires and how it should be evaluated. Standard methods of evaluation tend to 'black-box' the tutorial, treating it in predominantly inputÁoutput terms (Latour 1987). Such conceptions are useful but limited. Based on an evaluation of undergraduate philosophy tutorials at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), we attempt to unpack the black-box by focussing on the interactional strategies which tutors and students employed to make tutorials work. We argue that the rich details revealed by close scrutiny of studentÁtutor interaction provides a useful counter-weight to standardised measures. We suggest, therefore, that there are good reasons to expand the repertoire of techniques we use to evaluate teaching and learning to incorporate an explicitly interactional dimension Á particularly in contexts where the tutorÁstudent relationship is the foundation of academic success.

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