Contents
The understanding of how principles of support are implemented in the health and social care setting
3.1 The theories that underpin health & social care practice.
3.2 Analysis of how social processes impact on users of health and social care services
3.3 Evaluate the effectiveness of inter-professional working
Make recommendations to develop own contributions to meeting good practice requirements.
This report will focus on the principles of health and social care practice. In the paper, the researcher will demonstrate understanding of how principles of support are implemented in your health and social care setting, how principles of support are applied to ensure that individuals are cared for in the care setting and the benefit of following a person-centred approach with users of health and social care services. In addition, report will highlight ethical dilemmas and conflicts that may arise, when providing care, support and protection to service users. Task two will illustrates the impact of policy, legislation, regulation, codes of practice and standards in the health and social care setting, while task three and four will health and social care theory in practice and the researcher contribution towards the development and implementation of policy in the workplace respectively.
Health and social care is important to the society and country as whole. The health of citizens is paramount and essential for the survival of the country. Hence, the reason why the UK government invest some much fund on the National Health Services(NHS). People are affected with different illness and diseases; part of the responsibility health and social provider is to provide treatment and medication for people. The provision of health and social care service users is provided by maintaining the privacy of the patients and communicate factors or issues that may pose a risk to their health to them. This report will explore the principles of health and social care in practice in a health and social care organisation.
Principles of support is essential to a productive health and social care setting. According to Ashcroft (2007), part of the principles of support aim is to encourage care workers to identify and reflect upon the centrality of dignity in the provision of all care services and to commit to upholding the dignity of those they support. Principles simply means moral rule that guide behaviour, sometime consistence with regulation related to moral law (Healey and Marchese, 2012). The understanding of the research embedding the principles of health and social care practice is that individual should be treated with respected irrespective of the state of their health, race or believe. Everyone deserved to be given the best care possible. Heath care worker also must abide to the Equality Act 2010, Health and Safety Regulations of their organisation, conduct risk assessment and identify how to mitigate against such risks. Respect, and keep information about patients confidential at all times (McColgan, 2011). The principles of support help to provide guideline on how care worker can meet the expectation of their patients. Support is essential in health and social setting and it is what makes it successful. Effective supports provide appropriate health and support that will be right for service users. In addition, successful health and social care settings provides support for people that are not able to make decisions by themselves, it is essential that there is a procedure that enable such service user to have access to the best health care possible (McColgan, 2011). The UK government support health and social by investing heavily on the system and decree regulations that protect the rights of individual.
The implementation of principles of support in health and social care and care workers should value the uniqueness of every individual, uphold the responsibility to shape care and support services around each individual, value communicating with individuals in ways that are meaningful to them and recognise and respect how an individual’s dignity may be affected when supported with their personal care (Juth, 2013).Finally, health care employee must value workplace cultures that actively promote the dignity of everybody and recognise the need to challenge care that may reduce the dignity of the individual. All these factors are what makes principle of support essential in the health and social car setting (Juth, 2013).
1.1 The principles of support are applied to ensure that individuals are cared for in care setting.
The responsibility and duty of health and social practice is to provide support for the service users. In health care setting, the providers of health and social care must ensure that service users wellbeing and right are not violated. Worker must ensure that the service user received appropriate medical care as well as respecting the personality, belief or culture of the patients. In other word, the worker must understand how Equality Act 2010 applies to their work and how non-implementation can lead to severe consequences. People have different beliefs and culture; care employees have to respect service user culture and beliefs even if they do not agree with their faith or religion. In addition, service user has the right to make their own decisions, this is their statutory right that must not be violated by care worker. hence, balancing these factors with organisational policy can be complex sometimes. Confidentiality is paramount for health and social care worker because patients and care provider develops over time and many these will be known to the care worker. Keeping to the principles of health and social, the worker must keep all information relevant to the service user private, any information that may violated users’ privacy will need the consent of the service user. Care worker must have empathy and make ensured that decisions about patients are informed choice of the user. Empowerment, safety a, confidentiality, social justice are all principles that apply to providing health and social care in practice. In addition, Beneficence and non-maleficence are principles that apply to health and social care providers in their clinical practice.
The care worker code of ethics includes the principle of first doing no harm, which refers to non-maleficence, hence, care worker must not provide treatments that are known to be harmful to their patients and must not provide treatments that are known to be ineffective. Also, care workers have a duty to help their patients. They must provide effective treatment, which is a beneficent act, if a patient requires it. In health and social care setting, treatments often have benefits as well as risks involving side effects or complications. By weighing the benefits against the risks, doctors are balancing the principles of beneficence and non-maleficence. The principles of supports in health care helps care workers to understand the treatment procedure individual patients, how to maintain their privacy and how service users right are protected and informed decisions made.
As a health and socials care worker, the researcher applied the following to support the principles of health care in their organisation;
The provision of health and social care is important in the society; however, healthcare workers need to understand the principles that support how to implementation of effective health care practice.
In the health and social care setting, maintaining and promoting service users’ health and protecting them from any harm is essential. Likewise, safeguarding patients, staff and other stakeholders within the health and social care facilities or work environment is the primary duty of the employer (Appleton, 2011). Hence, service users should be provided health care in a safe and risk free environment. In most health and social care setting, management and care employees work in partnership with other agencies to provide adequate care to patient. Additionally, risk assessment is conducted by the management to mitigate against the like hood of accident happening. Staff have the obligation to report any risk that is associated with their role to the management.
•Care workers must also abide by the legislation under health and safety which is the Health and Safety at Work Act (HASAWA). Under this Act, Food hygiene, Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) regulation, first aid, fire safety, Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences regulation (RIDDOR), appropriate manual handling techniques should all be adopted by health care organisations. This will ensure that adequate health and safety measures are implemented to protect service users and staff from harm. Care workers must ensure that they follow the procedure according to their role and not to endanger fellow employees or put them in a risky situation. Harm and risks come in different forms, however, care worker can mitigate against risk if they follow safety standard set by their organisation. In some cases, care workers are faced with complex situation, for instance dealing with mentally ill patients. Some can be aggressive and abusive; the best strategy is the ability to control one’s emotional and shoe love and care even in the time of adversity. According to Butt and McGuinness (2008), using organisational systems and procedures to record accurate information will safeguard both service users and employee Care worker should record in a way that distinguishes fact from opinion, is transparent and respects the views of those with whom they are working. Poor case recording is often cited in cases where there have been poor outcomes.
Information sharing :informing relevant people about identified risks; care workers must inform managers and health and safety representatives about all identified risks.
Consider the right of individuals to take risks; while caring for a service user we have to balance their rights and our responsibilities carefully as taking risks can also ensure some independence.
Referral is where you first become professionally involved with someone. It could be at any point in the care pathway and is recognised as critical to establishing an effective relationship (Johnson and Weich, 2010). To protect service users and to provide best care, care workers have to sought appropriate permissions and consents, as well as following organisational policies, data protection and protocols for the sharing of information. To conclude, protecting vulnerable people is one of key duties of health and social care worker and they need to be familiar with the local organisational and multi-agency policies and procedures. In order to provide implement safeguarding policy effectively, care workers need to work alongside colleagues from both their own and other organisations, as well as advocates and brokers, family members and carers when taking decisions in relation to safeguarding (Appleton, 2011).
A person-centred approach means focusing on the elements of care, support and treatment that matter most to the patient, their family and carers. Person-centred care is a way of thinking and doing things that sees the people using health and social services as equal partners in planning, developing and monitoring care to make sure it meets their needs. This means putting people and their families at the centre of decisions and seeing them as experts, working alongside professionals to get the best outcome. Person-centred care is not just about giving people whatever they want or providing information. It is about considering people’s desires, values, family situations, social circumstances and lifestyles; seeing the person as an individual, and working together to develop appropriate solutions. Being compassionate, thinking about things from the person’s point of view and being respectful are all important. This might be shown through sharing decisions with patients andhelping people manage their health, but person-centred care is not just about activities. It is as much about the way professionals and patients think about care and their relationships as the actual services available.
In health and social care setting, there are many different aspects of person-centred care, it includes the following;
Person-centred care is a high priority and the benefits are enormous for both service users and the service providers. Making sure that people are involved in and central to their care is now recognised as a key component of developing high quality healthcare (Finset, 2011).
Person-centred care that put people at the centre of their care will
Research has shown that person-centred care can have a big impact on the quality of care, because it helps to improve the experience people have of care and help them feel more satisfied, encourage people to lead a more healthy lifestyle, such as exercising or eating healthily, encourage people to be more involved in decisions about their care so they get and services and support that are appropriate for their needs (Finset, 2011).
1.4 The ethical dilemmas and conflicts that may arise when providing care, support and protection to users of health and social care services
Care workers are sometimes faced with ethical dilemma that is contradictory to them. However, it is important that the care employees maintain the organisational policy and procedures of their provider in order to avoid unnecessary legal challenge. People have different beliefs, culture, values and orientation and these factors are sometimes what form their opinion or decisions. In most cases, conflict may arise in the values belief or culture between care workers and service users. For instance, some patients may decide not to take their medication because it against their culture or religion, and it is important that the sick patients take their drugs to get better, Likewise, the service users have the right to make their own decisions but sometimes they make worthless decisions that can even hamper their recovery, thus care worker is faced with a dilemma.
Care worker cannot force the service user to do anything against their will, but they also have to a duty to take care of the patients even if he or she refuses to their drugs. It will be unethical if the care workers should just leave the payment because they refused to take their medication, this kind of scenario is common in the health and social care setting. Although, in most severe conditions, the management have to decide what Is the best care for the service user. One way of dealing with ethical dilemma is the ability to show emotions and empathy, even if the patients refuses to comply, it is worth convincing them with warm heart that you are there to protect their interest and make them better.
It is important for care workers to be aware of the policies, legislation, regulations and codes of practice that are relevant to their practice. The code of practice sets the standard of conduct expected of healthcare workers and outlines the behaviour and attitudes expected from a care worker (Bondy, Matten and Moon, 2008).
In addition, the codes of practice guide care workers to be accountable by making sure they can answer for their actions or omissions, promote and uphold the privacy, dignity, rights, health and wellbeing of people who use health and care services and their carers at all times, work in collaboration with their colleagues to ensure the delivery of high quality, safe and compassionate healthcare, care and support and communicate in an open, and effective way to promote the health, safety and wellbeing of people who use health and care services and their carers. Other aspects are respecting the rights of service users, maintaining confidentiality and dignity of the patients at all time (Bondy, Matten and Moon, 2008).
Safe practice is very important to the promotion of dignity in care. There are a number of legislative measures and regulations to support health and safety at work. These are intended to protect people in work, those using services and the wider public. Health and social care worker have to comply with the Health and Safety policy and producers of their organisation, they must avoid discrimination by providing equal treatment to all service uses regardless of their race, religion or belief. This means care workers must abode to the Equality Act 2010 that provides cover for the nine protected characteristics (Age, Disability, Gender Reassignment, Marriage & Civil Partnership, Pregnancy & Maternity, Race, Religion or belief (including lack of belief), Sex and Sexual Orientation (LGB)) (Humphreys, 2010)
Additionally, care workers have to comply with the standards set by their providers, thus, standards help with consistency as they ensure those working in the sector meet a high level of quality when providing care and support. Legislation has also been introduced to help do this. Employees in health care have follow the Data Protection Act, information about patients cannot be shared with other people or organisation without the consent of the service users (Johnson and Weich, 2010).
Manual handling is a major issue for care providers as people with limited mobility need to be assisted safely to move and transfer. It is important this is done in a way that respects the dignity of the individual. While employers are required to ensure that they comply with the regulatory framework, this does not mean that an individual’s human rights can be disregarded. What is required is a balanced approach that reduces risks for workers while at the same time maintaining the dignity, privacy and autonomy of those they are caring for (Nikolajsen and Nielsen, 2015).In regard to control of Substances Hazardous to Health, employees must ensure that cleaning materials and medications that may be dangerous if not used properly are kept in a safe place and also care providers must protect staff and service users from harm by ensuring that potentially dangerous substances are safely stored and that staff that use them are properly trained to do so.
Care Act 2014: The Care Act places care and support law into a single, clear modern statute for the first time and enshrines the principle of individual wellbeing as the driving force behind it reference. It ensures that people will have clearer information and advice to help them navigate the system, and a more diverse, high quality range of support to choose from to meet their needs. The Act places more emphasis than ever before on prevention – shifting from a system which manages crises to one which focuses on people’s strengths and capabilities and supports them to live independently for as long as possible. The Act will make the care and support system clearer and fairer for those who need it. The government will set a national minimum eligibility threshold to help people better understand whether they are eligible for local authority support. This also paves the way to allow older people and those with disabilities to move from one area to another with less fear of having their care and support interrupted.
Code of conduct of the Healthcare supports workers and Adult Social Care workers
As a Healthcare Support Worker or Adult Social Care Worker in England I must:
1. Be accountable by making sure I can answer for my actions or omissions.
2. Promote and uphold the privacy, dignity, rights, health and wellbeing of people who use health and care services and their carers at all times.
3. Work in collaboration with colleagues to ensure the delivery of high quality, safe and compassionate healthcare, care and support.
4. Communicate in an open, and effective way to promote the health, safety and wellbeing of people who use health and care services and their carers.
5. Respect a person’s right to confidentiality.
6. Strive to improve the quality of healthcare, care and support through continuing professional development.
7. Uphold and promote equality, diversity and inclusion references
2.2 How local policies and procedures can be developed in accordance with national and policy requirements.
Policy and procedures are developed to provide guidelines for employees and to promote best practice. Local policies mainly focus on regionals, constituency or within an organisation. The idea of developing local policies is to be able to provide personalised care to service users by stull adhering to national requirement (Wilamowsky, Rotenstein and Epstein, 2013). Local policies and procedures can be developed through feedbacks from service users, employees, contractors, experienced care workers. However, developing local policies and blending it with national requirement demands brainstorm and critical thinking session. The information gathered have to be critically analysed, planned and implemented in a way that will add value to the support received by the service users and create effective measures for care workers to support their patients.
Developing local police need to embrace SMART (S-specific, significant, stretching, M -measurable, meaningful, motivational, A – agreed upon, attainable, achievable, acceptable, action-oriented, R – realistic, relevant, reasonable, rewarding, results-oriented AND T – time-based, time-bound, timely, tangible, trackable) approach to make it easier to achieve (Smart and Paulsen, 2011).The combination of local and national policies will enable the service providers embrace the culture of the local area. Care providers’ management must continuously review the current national policies to ensure that their organisation stayed within the law. Implementing local and national policies will enable the service provider to embrace the culture of the community, provide personalised and person centred care to their patients and develop a good relationship with the community. The formation of local and national policies need to indulge in improving the quality of care and services and flexible approach.
2.3 Evaluate the impact of policy, legislation, regulation, and codes of practice on organizational policy and practice.
Policy, legislation, codes of practice and regulations are set to safeguard service users and employees, to set guideline on how to conduct practice, provide standardisation of service delivery and to improve the quality of service rendered by service provider and care workers to their patients. Hence, it is important that health care providers comply with the legislation and regulations set by the government and communicate the codes of practice, legislation and regulation effectively to their employees for better policies implementation and efficient service delivery. The impact of not complying can have severe consequences both for the service users and health care providers. For instance, it is essential that care workers undergo CRB check to ensure that they are fit for purpose because they will be working with vulnerable people and children. Likewise, non-compliance with the Health and Safety Act 1974 in health and social care environment will lead to problem with the Health and Safety Executives(HSE). Employees need to be trained how to manage their own risk and record any activities that may pose a risk in their workplace, similarly, care workers have to be aware of the Equality Act 2010 that provides covers for the nine protected characteristics. Care employees have to be aware of both direct and indirect discrimination to safeguard themselves and their organisation form unnecessary legal cost. In addition, service provider’s need to create an ethical working environment for service users and employees in order to comply with equality and diversity principles. The consequences of not abiding to the legislation, and regulations set by the government can be severe because service providers may lose their licence for noncompliance. Also, employee that do not abide to the codes of conduct set by their organisation risk losing their job or even legal consequence.
Staff development and training: Staffs undergoes further training on new policies, initiatives and also to update their knowledge on existing ones. This improves their knowledge and understanding and improves their professional development.
Provision of quality services: maintaining standards provides quality service to users. Regular reviews from CQC and other audits are important as they help update policies and maintain standards at all times and support organisations to achieve the requirements. This will ultimately improve the organisation’s reputation.
Setting appropriate standards from legislations and policies and following them also have a good impact on the clients. Clients will generally be more satisfied and this will improve their health and wellbeing and promote a good quality of life for them.
On the other hand, regulations and legislations change so frequently and can contribute to the overall increase in work load. Recently there has been funding cuts which affects how much social services can provide for the care of their clients. These changes in regulations and legislations with the corresponding increase in workload present a challenge for most organisations that cannot afford the cost of additional staff. The few staff end up being overworked and underpaid, staff satisfaction and motivation reduces. This will end up having a detrimental effect on the clients. Despite well-known standards there is still a high incidence of abuse in care homes. Thesaraus, Financial. And many care home are forced to close down due to non-compliance.
Theories are essential in the health and social care field, as it helps to shape and directs all practice. In health and social care setting, most of theories embraced in the UK are closely related to humanistic theory. Likewise, the theories and approaches embedded in health care setting is linked to the legislation and policy guiding the practice. According to Healey and Marchese (2012), the application of theories in health and social care helps to guide future health and social care research. Humanistic theory is reality based and to be psychologically healthy people must take responsibility for themselves, whether the person’s actions are positive or negative. Realistically, the goal of life should always be to achieve personal growth and understanding. Only through self-improvement and self-knowledge can one truly be happy.
By applying humanist theory in health and social care, care worker will embrace the notion of person centred model of care and personalised health care that underpin the fundamental principles of health services in the UK. The theory underpins the importance of effective communication with service users and colleagues, as well as in inter-professional working relationship. Humanist theory emphasises the importance of learning through observation and modelling in terms of adhering to standards. It is only by understanding the importance of learning in the health and social setting that service providers can empower their patients and providing the best possible care to individuals of diverse backgrounds. The application of theory-driven health and social care practice, will enables health provider organisations and managers to address by issues and multiple factors influencing the practice (Engster, 2013).
Meeting individual needs by providing adequate health care and promoting healthy lifestyle as well as achieving high level of physical, spiritual, or social, for service users, humanist theory helps to develop health care plan. for instance, Maslow
Hierarchy of needs is one of the theories that is closely associated with health and social care practice. According to Maslow (1959), human beings are complex creatures who act upon all of these needs at the time. But Maslow posited that if the bottom tiers of needs are not satisfied, there is less energy, motivation, and capacity to pursue needs higher up the ladder. At each stage of treatment, a patient’s basic physical needs must be accounted for, whether by a physician, a social worker, a psychologist, or even a speech-language pathologist. Higher level needs, such as job security, successful relationships, academic or professional achievement, and intellectual growth are dependent upon the fulfilment of lower level needs but are also essential to a person’s health, well-being, and productivity (Ormrod, 1999).This principle encourages professionals across the gamut to look beyond their particular area of expertise; patients or clients will be evaluated in the context of their physical health, their family and career situation, their ability to communicate meaningfully with family members, and their ability to work. Treatment can be rationally targeted to address more basic needs before investing more heavily in higher level needs. Maslow’s model encourages healthcare professionals to consider a patient’s entire operating system and can be a useful tool for understanding a patient and providing logical, comprehensive services that address a patient as whole (Ormrod, 1999). •Behaviourist theory: is used to describe human behaviour. The concept is that all human behaviour can be understood as a result of learning. Two types of learning
Classical conditioning; inducing a natural reflex response to a stimulus. Operant conditioning: using reward and punishment to modify behaviour ref . We apply this in health and social care by ensuring clients are always rewarded for good behaviour so that that behaviour is reinforced.
Social learning theory: this is also called the theory of observational learning developed by Albert Bangura who states that behaviour can be developed as a result of observing and imitating others. For example our motivation to imitate a behaviour is influenced by whether the behaviour is reinforced or not. If it is reinforced we are more motivated to imitate that behaviour. When behaviour is learnt but not performed until a later date it is called latent learning (Albert Bangura).
Cognitive theory: is involved with aspects on individual’s cognitive processes that are involved with learning, thinking, knowing about, reflecting on, and understanding the world. It involves the study of our thinking, memory, intelligence, perception, problem solving and reasoning..
•Cognitive-Developmental Theory: Piaget
The most famous cognitive-developmental theorist was Jean Piaget. Piaget was more interested in cognitive functioning than personality development. He was interested in how knowledge develops in the human. He observed that at different ages, children show qualitatively different levels of comprehension and reasoning. This proceeds in an orderly sequence that is characterised by specific growth stages.
The role of the environment is merely to provide information. Some information can be assimilated into the child’s existing way of thinking about the world (mental structure). Other information forces changes in the child’s mental structure in order for new experiences to be added. In this way, the child’s thinking processes develop. All children are said to progress through all stages regardless of environmental influences ref.
Piaget’s Cognitive-Developmental Stages:
a. Sensorimotor development (0-2 years). The infant exercises rudimentary sensory (seeing touch, hearing, tasting, and smelling) and motor (kicking, punching, moving around, hitting objects) awareness and functions almost exclusively by means of reflexive responses. The child cannot think abstractly.
b. Preoperational thought (2-7 years). The child demonstrates an increase in language abilities and concepts become more elaborate. However, the child can only view the world from its own perspective
c. Concrete operations (7-11 years). The ability to consider the viewpoints of others and understand relational concepts is evident. However, the child cannot solve problems of an abstract nature.
d. Formal operations (11-15). Abstract thinking is now possible and scientific problem-solving A child cannot move from one stage to another until a biological maturation point has been reached.
This theory is applied in health and social care by ensuring that providers are aware of the mental abilities of their clients and are able to adjust their communication style to suit these abilities. This is particularly so if the client suffers from learning difficulty.
Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory
Erikson’s theory is based on the psychoanalytic approach to human development, founded by Sigmund Freud. Essential for the theory is the organism’s ability to deal with a series of crises throughout her/his lifespan. Each stage of life has a crisis that is related in some way to an element in society. The development of personality begins with strengths that commence at birth; as the child grows, strength is accrued, one quality at a time; each quality undergoing rapid growth at a critical period of development.
8 psychosocial stages:
a. Basic trust vs basic mistrust (0-1 years) – the nature of parental interaction with the infant is critical. Proper care, love and affection mean the child develops a sense of trust. Otherwise, the child becomes suspicious and mistrusting.
b. Autonomy vs doubt (1-3 years) – the child begins the experience independence. If this urge to explore the world is encouraged, children grow more confident and autonomous. If not, children may harbour doubts about their own inadequacies
c. Initiative vs guilt (3-5 years) – parental reinforcement is important for the child to develop initiative and promote purpose- and goal-directiveness. Parental restrictiveness promotes guilt whenever children seek to discover the world on their own.
d. Industry vs inferiority (6-11 years) – child desires to manipulate objects and learn how things work, leading to a sense of order, a system of rules and understanding of the environment. Inferiority results if adults perceive such behaviour as mischievous or silly.
Identity vs role confusion (adolescence) – the task is to develop an integrated sense of self. Failure of adults to help adolescents establish a sense of personal identity may lead to inadequacy, isolation and indecisiveness (role confusion).
The final three stages occur during adulthood
f. Intimacy vs isolation (young adulthood) – task is to develop close meaningful relationships with others. Individuals are able to share themselves with others on a moral, emotional and sexual level. Those unwilling or unable to do this will suffer loneliness or isolation.
g. Generativity vs self-absorption (middle adulthood) – generatively means adults are willing to express concern for others. The self-absorbed person will be preoccupied with personal well-being and material gain.
h. Integrity vs despair (old age) – those with a sense of integrity have typically resolved previous psychosocial crises and can look back at their lives with dignity, satisfaction and personal fulfilment. Despair sets in if looking back engenders feelings of disappointment and failure. (K cherry 2016).
Individuals have different personalities as proposed by the theory and as such may react differently to predicted and unpredictable life events. Health care workers musist be aware of this fact and understand the factors that may be influencing their behaviours. With this information, they may be able to refer some clients for psychological support from a psychoanalyst.
Social processes refer to forms of social interaction that occur repeatedly. social processes mean the ways in which individuals and groups interact and establish social relationships. There are various of forms of social interaction such as cooperation, conflict, competition, and accommodation. Social processes are the ways in which individuals and groups interact, adjust, and readjust and establish relationships and pattern of behaviour which are again modified through social interactions (Forrest, 2013). Social processes impact the way people perceive health care either through their lifestyle, the way they think, and their actions. Health and social care providers and government have to monitor social processes and factor it into the development of health and social care strategies.
For health care providers to embrace social processes or change, they need to understand that people are different, they have different culture, beliefs and values and they react differently to circumstances of the same nature. For instance, people that chose unhealthy life style like smoking and drinking are pressured by NHS to change their lifestyle. Some care workers may indirectly discriminate against some service user because of their life style or culture. For instance, some people like to have tattoos all over their body, it may be against the culture of the care worker to have tattoos on their skin because of their beliefs or religion. It is the responsibility of the care worker to ensure that all service users are treated equally and fairly. To effectively manage changes in social processes, care workers should work in partnership with multiple agencies, meet the fundamental needs of individual patients, provided personalised services and embrace equality and diversity by respecting the dignity and differences in each service users.
Inter-professional working is crucial to meet the needed of service users in health and social care setting. Health care practitioner work in collaboration and compliment each other skills to provide effective health care to the society. Doctors, health care assistant, nurses, midwives, psychologists or physical therapists sometimes work together to effectively meet the needs of patients. This approach is essential in health care because it help to provide fast service to the patients and also healthcare practitioners to improve on the services rendered to service users. Inter-professional working foster positive and trustworthy working relationship among health care employee and service users. In addition, the approach facilitates and promote holistic methods to health.
It helps to Patients and service user benefits from inter-professional working relationship from the following; improve care by increasing the coordination of services; Integrates health care for a wide range of health needs;Empowers patient/clients as active partners in care;Oriented to serving patients of diverse cultural backgrounds; andMore efficient use of time
For health care providers:
There will be increases professional satisfaction due to clearer, more consistent goals of care and facilitates shift in emphasis from acute, episodic care to long-term preventive care and chronic illness management; The collaborative experience enables the provider to learn new skills and approaches to care Provides an environment for innovation; and allows providers to focus on individual areas of expertise.
For inter-professional working to be effective, partners must be clear of each other’s roles and responsibilities, have a clear leadership and reduce conflicts about partners. In most cases my organisation has had effective partnerships between the nurses, managers GP and social workers.
However the partnership can breakdown if each party has their own agenda that is not clearly understood by the others. This can lead to conflicts and mistrust among partners and the ultimate unfavourable outcome for the service user.
Effective health and social care delivery required care workers to work with other agencies to meet the needs of service users Care workers work with social workers, local government, citizen advice bureau and the police to provide the services needed by service users. Health practitioner under the NHS Constitution, Section 4b
Of Health and Social Care Practice have a duty and responsibilities to; take reasonable care of health and safety at work for people, team and others, and to
co-operate with employers to ensure compliance with health and safety requirements,
I act in accordance with the express and implied terms of contract of employment.
I do not discriminate against patients or staff and to adhere to equal opportunities and equality and human rights legislation
I protect the confidentiality of personal information that anyone holds
I try to be honest and truthful in applying for a job and in carrying out that job
I also maintain the highest standards of care and service, treating every Individual with compassion, dignity and respect, taking responsibility not only for the care people personally provide, but also for wider contribution to the aims of team and the NHS as a whole.
I play part in sustainably improving services by working in partnership with patients, the public and communities
I involve patients, their families, carers or representatives including the social workers, GP fully in decisions about prevention, diagnosis, and their individual care and treatment
I also contribute towards providing fair and equitable services for all and play part, wherever possible, in helping to reduce inequalities in experience.
I also inform patients about the use of their confidential information and record their objections, consent or dissent.
I provide access to patient’s information to other relevant professionals, by doing it securely, and only where there is a legal and appropriate basis to do so.
In health and social care setting important that care workers follow the guidelines set by their organisation. The codes of conduct stimulate the kind of behaviour that is accepted in the work environment as well as the legislation and regulation employees have to adhere. The important of implementing these policies is that it helps to provide consistency, measurable and accountability. Health and social workers have to continuously update their skills and knowledge as well as liaising with other professional to contribute to the development and implementation of health and social care organizational policy. Effective organisational policies need to be clear and set appropriate guidance for employees. Care workers can contribute to the development of organisational by through brainstorming with other employees, working with other professional, learning best practice and attending seminar and workshop. As a health and social care worker, I liaised with other professionals outside health and social care sector to meet the demands of the service user and ensuring I stayed within the organisational policy. A good working relationship fosters effective organisational policy development and implementation. In addition, management need to continuously review organisational policies to be efficient and relevant in the work environment.
Health and social care worker can develop their own contribution to meeting good practice requirements by demonstrating how an increased awareness, knowledge and understanding of equality and diversity can inform my practice and care delivery, how working collaboratively with the multi-professional health and social care team can improve the patient journey and by respecting and value all factors contributing to a positive experience of receiving healthcare for patients and families. In addition, health care worker can develop good practice by liaising with other professionals within and outside the organisation as well as incorporating different cultures, values and choices upon the delivery of person centred healthcare provision. Workers in the health and social care setting are required to have adequate knowledge about the codes of conduct of General Health Council(GHC) regulations and legislation relevant to their practice and attending seminar and workshops about health care implementation in order to meet the good practice requirements and contribute to development of organisational policies. As a care worker, I ensure that my skills and knowledge are update regularly to meet the requirement of GHC and to meet the expectations of the patients. I should improve my skills in whistleblowing and challenging poor practice as I sometimes feel I should not get people in trouble
Health and social care plays a vital role in the society. Care workers are responsible for providing care services to the service users and help in prevention and treatment of disease. Without effective health and social system, I will be impossible to minimize the diseases and various hazards from the society. Hence, it is essential that government and health care provider have a working relationship to improve the delivery of health and social care to the society and the nation as whole.
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