Unit 2 Principles of HSC Practices Assignment

Program	Diploma in Health and Social Care
Unit Number and Title	Unit 2 Principles of HSC Practices
QFC Level	Level 4

Introduction:

Health and social care centers are required to take care of people’s health and promote health in society. Health centers have the whole sole responsibility of protecting people from illness and diseases by delivering high quality treatment and care services to the users and ensuring their safety. Several principles and practices have been recommended that need to be followed by social settings so as to ensure health and safety  of people, so this assignment would depict those principles of HSC dealing with support and care provision to health service users. In addition, the development, implementation and impact of policies, legislations and code of practices in HS would be discussed. Finally my role and contribution to the health center as its manager would be depicted along with discussing the recommendations for improvement of my care home.

Task 1

1.1 Application Of Principles Of Support To Ensure Service Users’ Care:

The primary requirement of home care is to help people to recover from their illness or manage disability by providing them required support. In order to make sure that the service users are receiving adequate support and care, following principles of support must be applied:

• Every person must be treated with equality without any bias or discrimination based on culture, class, education, etc.
• Every person has right to keep their choices or make decisions, thus must be consulted or informed properly prior to any treatment plan or procedure, that is, ensuring empowerment of service users.
• Care homes have access to various personal and private information of every user and it is necessary to effectively protect this information and keeping it safely and securely to maintain confidentiality and privacy of people (Crawford, et al., 2002).
• Every user has different needs and requirements and to make sure that he gets support and care, his individual needs must be identified and catered. Service provider must adopt a person centered approach and must not apply generalized rules on everybody.
• People must be protected from all kinds of harm and abuse including physical, sexual, mental or social abuse. Safety and security of vulnerable individuals like elderly people, children, mental health patients, etc is very essential.

1.2 Procedures Adopted To Protect People From Harm:

Although Fleetwood Hall Home has been found to have inadequate services and facilities for their users in CQC inspection, still, few procedures are followed at the center to protect client and colleagues from harm as:

Firstly, the cleanliness and hygiene is strictly maintained in the care home. Hospitals and care settings are one of the most infected places and may lead to cause nosocomial or hospital acquired infections to patients, care takers or staff and thus, to ensure their safety and protection, a clean and tidy work environment is being maintained. Equipments, furnishings, etc are kept properly sterilized and waste is disposed off as per recommended guidelines. The available food to service users or family members is also cooked and kept in hygienic manner (McLean, 2010). Another way of protecting people from harm is through protecting their data and personal information gained while their admission or treatment. As per Data Protection Act, client information is kept in safe and secure manner and is not accessible to unrelated and unwanted people. Their fundamental rights of dignity and confidentiality are well protected.

Service users are availed with a wide range of health care professionals so as to cater their individual health needs and requirements and meet them efficiently. Trained and experienced health practitioners do procedures that are beneficial for patients and do not lead to any kind of harm.

1.3 Benefit Of Adopting Person Centered Approach:

Person centered approach of delivering health services to users is the care services based on needs, circumstances and preferences of the person receiving care. It involves identification of individual needs, make treatment and care related decisions as per their needs and choice and finally achieving the aspired goals. It is an extremely beneficial approach since every patient has different needs and preferences and what is important for one patient may be not necessary or desirable by another one. So, the shared decision making process as well as self -management support of person centered approach enhances the outcomes of delivered health services and also improves patient experience and quality of care.

People feel much more comfortable as well as confident in getting treated and feel empowered and valued. It is also reported that patients receiving such care stick to their treatment plans better and regularly take medicines (McLean, 2010). This approach keeps the patient’s safety, comfort and well being as the top most priority and thus, protects him from physical, emotional or social harm. It also helps in reducing the burden and pressure on service providers since both users and service providers are working together to bring best solutions and eventually improves staff performance and work satisfaction.

1.4 Ethical Dilemmas And Conflicts That Arise While Supporting And Caring Elderly Clients:

Many times, there occur situations where care takers of elderly people face an ethical dilemma that may even result in conflict while supporting and protecting them. It usually happens when a certain recommended behavior that is intended to protect the elderly individual from harm is being done and is not desirable by the client. It is service providers’ duty to ensure safety and protection of their client but it is also essential to consider their choices and wishes, thus, ethical dilemma situations arise, care workers feel helpless and confused and even the quality of service is also hampered (Pereira, et al., 2008)

For instance, in the given case study of Mrs. Y, 70 yrs female with Alzheimer’s who faces difficulty in walking and needs continuous support is in distress currently. This is because she does not like the straps used to transfer her from bed to wheelchair and bruised her by getting tumbled. In this case, Mrs. Y is an adult and has all right to make her decisions, on the other hand, it is care workers’ duty and responsibility to protect and support her. Thus, care workers feel helpless and strapped. They try to explain and convince patient that it is for their good and safety but if clients refuse to agree, then they can’t force or impose things on them.

Task 2

2.1 Implementation Of Policies, Legislations, Regulations And Codes Of Practices:

For ensuring maximum safety and security of service users and for maintaining the standard of health services delivered at social care centers, several regulations, legislations and codes of practices have been recommended by the government and responsible agencies. The care homes have local policies as well that are followed and implemented to protect maximum rights of users. Service users especially elderly people, children and disabled individuals are at high risk of getting abused in various ways and thus, strict rules and regular inspection is adopted at the center to prevent physical, mental or social abuse of clients. Their important personal information is kept confidential and secured following the Data Protection Act. Clients are provided all the required information regarding their present condition, treatment plan, prognosis, involved risks, etc as per Data Information Act (Glasby, 2003).

Health and Safety at Work Act, 1974 is followed at the center ensuring that employees take proper care of clients and cater their health needs and safety requirements. Service users are also empowered at Fleetwood Hall Home by actively involving them in  decision making  process and considering their choices and preferences. Their consent is taken either in written or oral manner before any treatment procedure or investigation. In addition, as per Control of Substance Hazardous to Health Regulation, all the hazardous and harmful chemicals and medicines are kept under strict control and has limited access to prevent any accident.

2.2 Developing Policies And Procedures In Fleetwood Hall Home:

Policies and procedures are developed at an organization with the aim of guiding the staff and management to proceed and work. National policies are recommended by identifying and keeping the broader picture of people’s needs in mind while local policies are developed to address the needs and requirements of certain specific group of people residing in an area. More or less, the basic demands of people are same everywhere, however, the social, economic as well as environmental conditions of a group exert major impact over their requirements. So for developing policies and procedures that cater the needs of local people in best possible way at the Fleetwood Hall Home, the primary requirement is to identify these individual needs, grading these needs as per importance and priority and then finally looking for national policies that can be applied to address them efficiently (Kilbane & Thompson, 2004).   Following that, the selected or suggested policies need to be screened to weigh the pros and cons of their applications and in case, they are found apt, then must be adopted as soon as possible. Another essential part of developing policies is making the staff understand the importance of them and training them to follow these newly developed policies.

2.3 Impact Of Policy, Legislation, Regulation And Codes Of Practice On Organizational Policy And Practice.

Recommended policy, legislation, regulation and codes of practice have significant impact over Fleetwood hall home policies and practices as they majorly help in guiding the development and adoption of these practices. They provide the direction in which these policies must be developed to address the needs and requirement of people in best possible way. Thus, they help in raining the standard of services delivered to the clients and ensure their safety and security. It is nearly impossible to develop policies without any reference and, these laws and legislations act as major reference and guidance. People’s rights are protected in better way and they receive an organized and ethical environment. Moreover, these organizational policies assist in avoiding major conflicts and help in smoothly running all the operations.

These policies also help in inspection and identification of unaccepted behavior at the organization. For example, if any employee is found to be guilty of not following the recommended policies or procedures, he may be punished or fined and thus, even, the employees would strictly and cautiously follow rules and regulations. Thus, these local policies guided by national legislations and regulations help in ensuring safety of patients and delivering high quality health and care services to them.

Task 3:

3.1 Theories That Underpin Health And Social Care Practice:

Various theories can be used to explain the practices and policies adopted at the health care center and for developing the framework assisting in provision of quality services to the clients. These are as follows:

• Elizabeth Kubler- Ross theory that suggests that a person moves through five stages of grief viz. denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance while responding to a new situation of personal change. When a person is emotionally upset over a situation, first he would deny to accept it, then would be angry as why it is happening, followed by bargaining with the situation and getting depressed and eventually, he accepts it that it was bound to happen. Thus, better understanding of this theory by care workers can help them to identify the stage of their clients and help in their better management (Hunter, 1996).
• Cognitive theory by Bandura suggests that a person’s thoughts and actions are influenced by his emotions and behavior and therefore, his reactions are based upon his expectations from others. This theory helps in justifying varying behaviors of clients and also helps in communicating them in a better way (Thompson, 2000).

Thus, knowledge and application of these and many other theories like classical and operant conditioning theory, Maslow hierarchy of needs, etc can greatly help service providers to improve the overall efficiency and outcome of their services.

3.2 Social Processes Impact On Service Users:

There are several social processes acting in the society and exerting major impact over the reactions, behaviors and different level of adaption of different situation by different people. Even the thoughts, actions and lifestyle are determined by these social processes making it really important for health and social care centers to consider these processes. Various essential strategies of these organizations are planned and developed as per these processes and their effectiveness too is affected (Hall and Elliman, 2006).

The society comprises of various kinds and divisions of people including people having access to almost everything in the world to people lacking access to even the basic requirements necessary for living. The health needs of people vary as per their social, cultural and economic background and thus, the health services must be delivered accordingly. However, many times service providers treat their patient in a biased manner depending on their economic and cultural conditions that need to closely inspected and avoided. Social processes also affect the way of perceiving certain behavior like people may get addicted to smoking and alcohol due to peer pressure from their people or friends while in few cultures needle borne infections are common as they are bound to have piercings ad tattoos.

3.3 Effectiveness Of Inter Professional Working:

Inter professional working in a health care center is when people with different skills and caliber come together and deliver health services to the users expecting best outcomes. It is actually a team work of professional doctors, midwives or nurses, physiotherapists, psychologists, social workers, etc that is being adopted in health centers for delivering complete care to the patients and addressing their each and every need (Thorpe & Loo, 2003).

This approach has many benefits, most important being the high quality of health and care services delivered through this teamwork, thus, better results are achieved in less time. Inter professional working also gives an opportunity to professionals to share their knowledge and experiences and increase their exposure. Their present capabilities can increase manifold getting a chance to learn things and skills from other professionals. The overall problem solving efficiency improves and more perfect treatment and health services are delivered (Day, 2013). But at times, this approach may have disadvantages as well as it may lead to ego clashes, arguments or conflicts in case of lack of mutual agreement over some decisions. Such situations greatly hamper the prognosis and health of clients and thus, professionals need to behave maturely and respect each other.

Task 4

4.1 My Role, Responsibilities, Accountabilities And Duties To Resolve The Failings:

As the manager of Fleetwood Hall Home, it is my duty to resolve all the failings mentioned in the CQC report and ensure that the clients receive recommended quality of health services. The first and foremost requirement was to ensure the safety of service users especially females who at present feel unsafe in the care home. It is really essential to arrange for separate toilets and lounge as well. In addition, rule of restricted entry of unrelated males in female patient unit would be developed and applied as early as possible to protect the vulnerable patients from any kind of abuse. In this direction, training programs for the staff and nurses would also be organized to guide and train them to deliver better services and protect service users from any harm (Gerston, 2004).

Another essential duty is to manage the medicines effectively since there is mental unit comprising of several patients with disabilities and these people are at high risk of getting harm with medicine misuse. I must ensure that medicines are administered, stored and monitored as per recommended procedures and policies. Current policies and procedures of the organization need to reviewed and amended as per recommended local and national policies and even new policies required to cater the needs and requirements of service users would be developed.

4.2 My Contribution In Developing And Implementing Of Policies.

For promoting public health, government has always emphasized over delivering health services to the people and for that several policies, legislations, procedures and code of practice have been recommended. Following CQC inspection and its final report, I realized that the care home immediately needs various policies and its implementation. Thus, my primary step in this direction was to better understand the needs and requirements of clients so as to develop policies and procedures that can work best for them. Keeping their interests and protection as priority, I selected few policies out of list of recommended government national and local policies (Thorpe & Loo,2003).

I came to know that people were not feeling safe at the care home and ensuring their safety was the primary thing to be addressed. In addition, training and development of staff was another major requirement to raise the standard of care services. So, I shortlisted policies in this direction, examined them by comparing the positive, negative and difficult aspects of their application and finally organized a meeting with higher and responsible authorities of the Fleetwood Home with my report (Moon, 2008). I convinced them and made them understand my point of needing some immediate and serious reforms in current policies. Finally, with everybody’s consent, views and advice, we agreed upon few best suitable policies, organized training sessions for instructing the staff and ensured that these new policies are followed. Now, positive and fruitful results of these efforts are expected.

4.3 Recommendations To Develop Own Contributions In Meeting Practice Requirements:

For ensuring that service users get high quality of health and care services in a safe and secure environment, it is necessary to adopt few practices as followed:

All the staff members must be well informed and trained about safety measures in the care home and must be empowered to report any abuse case to higher responsible authorities as soon as possible. They must be regularly trained and developed so as to keep them updated about latest medical advancements and make sure that people receive best health care services. They also need to be educated about importance of protecting the rights of users, thus, must give respect to their choices, needs, protect their information, maintain safety and security and take proper care of the patients.

Regular inspection of care home is another essential thing to be done to check if the recommended policies are being followed or not, to identify the breaches and to maintain the standard of services. to further improve the performance of professionals and staff, feedbacks must be taken from users and family members. This too would help in identifying weaknesses and limitations of current services and better recognition of user’s needs and requirements. In addition, the staff also must be promoted to communicate freely with higher authorities regarding their roles, responsibilities, doubts or queries (Fostering Network, 2006).

Conclusion:

At present, the Fleetwood Hall Home has several breaches and limitations in their delivered health services and users are not getting optimum level of care services. thus, several measures need to be taken immediately to protect people from getting harm and receive high quality of services. The staff and professionals must primarily need to understand the importance of protecting people’s fundamental right to receive quality services in a safe environment and with their full consent. For that, new policies and procedures need to be developed, implemented and strictly followed in the care home.

References:

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Day, J. (2013). Interprofessional Working: An Essential Guide for Health and Social Care Professionals. Thomson Learning. ISBN: 978-1408074954.
Fostering Network (2006) Improving Effectiveness in Foster Care Recruitment. London: Fostering Network. www.fostering.net/england/documents/ recruitment_report.pdf (accessed 22/04/2016)
Gerston, L. (2004). Public Policy Making Process and Principles. 2nd ed. New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc.
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McLean, S. (2010). Autonomy, Consent and the Law. London: Routledge-Cavendish.
Moon, J.A. (2008). Reflection in learning and  professional development : theory and practice. London: Routledge Falmer National Health Services. (2012). The NHS Constitution. London: Department of Health.