Principles of Health and Social Care Practice

Principles of Health and Social Care Practice

Order Instructions:

Principles of Health and Social Care Practice
LO1 Understand how principles of support are implemented in health and social care practice
1.1 Explain how principles of support are applied to ensure that individuals are cared for in health and social care practice
1.2 Analyse the benefit of following a person-centred approach with users of health and social care services
1.3 Explain ethical dilemmas and conflict that may arise when providing care, support and protection to users of health and social care services.
1.4 Explain ethical dilemmas and conflict that may arise when providing care, support and protection to users of health and social care services.
LO2 Understand the impact of policy, legislation, regulation, codes of practice and standards on organisation policy and practice
2.1 Explain the implementation of policies, legislation, regulations and codes of practice that are relevant to own work in health and social care.
2.2 Explain how local policies and procedures can be developed in accordance with national and policy requirements.
2.3 Evaluate the impact of policy, legislation, regulation, and codes of practice on organisational policy and practice.
LO3 Understand the theories that underpin health and social care practice
3.1 Explain the theories that underpin health and social care practice.
3.2 Analyse how social processes impact on users of health and social care services.
3.3 Evaluate the effectiveness of inter-professional working
LO4 Be able to contribute to the development and implementation of health and social care Organisational policy.
4.1 Explain own role, responsibilities, accountabilities and duties in the context of working with those within and outside the health and social care workplace.
4.2 Evaluate own contribution to the development and implementation of health and social care organisational policy.
4.3 Make recommendations to develop own contributions to meeting good practice requirements.
Background Info – Summative assessment to be handed in on 1-07-13
Today, we live side by side with people from different ethnic, cultural, social, and religious backgrounds. We are becoming increasingly aware of the fact that we live in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society. Depending upon where we live, work, or which services we access in the community, we have probably seen changes to our communities over a period of time. We are increasingly aware of the differences and similarities among ourselves and others, in relation to; age, gender, ethnicity, culture, religious beliefs and practices, social and economic status, educational and occupational backgrounds, disability, sexual orientation, health, and the impact of illness.
In everyday life, we may find our long held ideas about ourselves as well as others challenged when we encounter people from diverse cultural backgrounds. Our levels of understanding about other cultures may vary. In some instances our observations may be superficial and our knowledge less developed, based on media representations or limited encounters with people from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. In other cases, it may be that through personal and professional contact we have been able to establish over time an understanding of others from diverse backgrounds. In modern urban environments, it is likely that cultural diversity is an obvious reality for all of us, yet we must acknowledge our level of awareness and sensitivity, or lack of it, in order to demonstrate our respect for others.
Valuing diversity is an essential aspect of living and working in a multicultural society. As professionals in health and social care, we need to become aware of the cultural influences on health, health behaviours, and illness and recovery, and translate that awareness into culturally congruent care practice. We need to develop the knowledge, skills and attitudinal responses to meet the health needs of the people in the communities we serve with respect, sensitivity and the competence required.
Due to these changes, different rules and legislations have been put in place to care for and protect care users from being discriminated against and to give them the best possible care. Due to varied services offered to the care users, it is important to have inter-professional working among different professionals providing service to them. The focus of care delivery has also become more holistic with care users social interactions and needs are taken into consideration during care planning and delivery. The care providers do face situations where an ethical dilemmas and conflicts do arise as they have to deal with people from varied backgrounds and experiences.
Assessment For Module
Write an essay of 3000 words (bearing in mind the learning outcomes) attempt the questions above. LO 1.4 (pg. 4) and LO4 (pg. 5) needs to be based on the provided relevant case studies. The final submission of summative assignment covering LO1, LO2, LO3 and LO4 is by 1st of July 2013.

You need to use one of the following case scenarios in order to answer LO 1.4.
1. A pregnant woman is killed from injuries sustained in a car wreck, but the foetus may still be able to sustain life by keeping the mother on life support. The wife had always said she would not want to be kept alive on life support if there was no reasonable expectation of full recovery. Should she be put on life support when her family knew she did not want that and it would be at great expense to the family, and when the woman is already clinically dead?

2. Mrs M is a service user in the residential care home. She is 67 years old. She likes to smoke and drink whisky, which has caused serious problem to her health by having lung cancer. Despite the advice and recommendations of the doctors, the social worker and the manager of the care home she cannot cease this habit.
Lately Mrs M has been suffering from acute pains. The painkillers prescribed by the doctor are not working effectively to relieve the pains of Mrs M. The doctor is refusing to prescribe stronger painkillers because of their serious adverse effects and possible addiction. But the manager and staffs cannot see Mrs M suffering by screaming and wandering throughout the premises asking for help.

3. A 20-year-old, pregnant, Black Hispanic female presented to the Emergency Department (ED) in critical condition following a single-vehicle car accident. She exhibited signs and symptoms of internal bleeding and was advised to have a blood transfusion and emergency surgery in an attempt to save her and the foetus. She refused to accept blood or blood products and rejected the surgery as well.

You need to use the Case Study below to answer LO 4

Case Study

“Rio Ross was found dead clutching a Winnie the Pooh toy in July 2007.
An inquest found the 14-month-old baby from Bristol died from an overdose of heroin, cocaine and methadone.
He died two months after social workers were warned that his mother Sabrina, a former prostitute, was using crack and heroin on top of her methadone, and a month after drug workers agreed to let the pregnant woman take the drug substitute without supervision.
A case review by Bristol Safeguarding Children Board, which represents all the agencies supposed to protect children, details a series of failings by social services, drugs agencies, and police, who did not alert their child abuse team when they found the mother and baby at the scene of a drugs raid.
Despite listing four critical decisions which left Rio in danger, a summary of the report concluded that no one agency was to blame.
But in November, Government watchdog Ofsted ruled that the review itself was inadequate, and ordered a fresh probe, which will report next month.
Sabrina Ross, 30, was jailed for five years in June after admitting manslaughter of her son. Her second child, born in December, was placed into foster care.
Bristol City Council said no staff had been disciplined in connection with the failure to protect the child. A spokesman said a reconsideration of its review of the case would be submitted to Ofsted next month. On Friday, the council’s director of children’s services, Heather Tomlinson, announced plans to take early retirement, which a spokesman said was entirely unconnected to the review.”
Ref: (The Telegraph, Jan 2009)

Task scenario: You were working as part of the health and social care team dealing with this family before the incident occurred, but now you are reflecting on how you could have helped further to prevent this incident from occurring. Use further sources as required to answer the questions.

You must imagine yourself in any one of the below roles (a-e), and consider what your role, accountabilities and duties were leading up to the event (4.1); consider whether you could have contributed to the development/implementation of any organisational policies to prevent the incident (4.2); and consider how you will contribute to good practice in the future (4.3).

a) Safeguarding Officer
b) Social Worker
c) Social Care Regulatory Inspector
d) Social Care Compliance Officer
e) Substance Misuse Nurse

SAMPLE ANSWER

Principles of Health and Social Care Practice

Introduction

Communities and societies have the right to access to good quality health care. Despite the people diversities, they at some point require medication or social support services. Therefore, it becomes prudent for the service providers to put in place appropriate strategies to reduce risks and hazards. There is also need to maintain privacy of service users and promote awareness on diseases and many other social issues that affect people since principles of health and social care practice are built on this, hence the focus of this paper.

LO1 Implementation of principles of support in health and social care practice

1.1

In health and social care setting, the major principal is providing quality support to users. Users should remain confident and assured of receiving quality health care services for their wellbeing (Healy, 2011). Health care providers must be aware of their roles and the rights of the patients as well as their personalities (Healy, 2011). There application is also manifest by upholding to diversity and equality when providing care. Health providers must ensure that they provide quality care to all patients without discrimination. Even though, patients’ beliefs, culture, norms, and values do vary, health providers should not discriminate them based on any demographic factors. Upholding to human dignity and worth as well shows how the principles of support are applied. Other ways include; empowering patients through such approaches as the person-centered approach by tailoring health with their needs and desires (Healy, 2011). Allowing patients to make informed choices, embracing social justice, integrity, and assessing risks before taking a certain step of action, are other ways of applying the principles (Fish & Karban, 2014). Service users should as well be allowed to access to different health care needs or treatments without restraint. Systems must be working properly for these principles to be applied well. Employees must have better training, must work closely with the service users, should have effective communication skills to share and get valuable information from the service users before providing care (Healy, 2011).

1.2

All servicer users need protection from any likely harm in health and social care setting. Some of the harms service users risk experiencing includes financial, physical, emotional, and psychological harm. For instance, physical harm can occur in case a mentally challenged person attacks a fellow patient or even an employer. There are various ways of protecting patients from such kinds of harms. One way to avoid these harms is for the organization to set policies and procedures to guide in management of the harms (Healy, 2011). For instance, mentally ill patients should be placed in specific rooms to deter their movement. Another way is to allow personalized care planning. Such programs will help to reduce emotional and psychological harms. Risk assessment and management is also a suitable way to manage these harms. Through risk assessment, the organization can identify the in advance potential risks and come up with appropriate remedies. Other ways include making referrals to other facilities with equipment and facilities, raising an alert, ensuring good record keeping, partnering with other people and institutions to manage the harm. For instance, psychologists can partner with health and social care institutions to provide counseling and therapist services to emotional and depressed service users.

1.3

Among many approaches, it is prudent for care providers to follow the person-centred approach in providing care to patients. Under this approach, client needs, values, and desires are considered when providing health and social care (Broady, 2014). One of the benefits of this approach is that it empowers the clients, hence promote quick recovery, as the client feels valued and respected (Markwick, 2013). The approach as well improved the psychological, physical, and emotional health of the patient. Furthermore, the approach increase openness something that fosters delivery of better health care. When values and desires of the patient are met, they are able to cooperate. This in turn makes the work of the care provider easier.

1.4

During their service delivery, health and social care providers experience various incidences of ethical dilemma and conflicts. These conflicts sometimes hamper delivery of quality health care. Even though, these organizations have policies they require to oblige, certain occasions may require ignoring the same. This therefore, results to an ethical dilemma as abiding to an alternative decision option leads to conflict. Common ethical dilemma scenarios and incidences include deciding between the welfare of the client versus that of the public, gaining informed consent, an individual choice verse the rights of others and limitation of confidentiality among others. A good scenario to demonstrate ethical dilemma and conflict of interest health and care provider face is the case of Mrs. M. This 67-year-old has refused to quit smoking despite suffering from lung cancer. She has as well refused to heed to the advice of the doctors. Even though she has the right to make choices, the choice is not in tandem with the public good. This therefore, creates an ethical dilemma situation since; it is the responsibility of care providers to ensure that the user leads a better live. Furthermore, an ethical dilemma is experienced when doctors stop giving her stronger medication to worsen her situation but care providers show empathy to her sufferings, and seek for assistance. This therefore, creates conflicts among the doctors and care providers. There seems to be no trust between these two. Similarly, it is also unethical to refuse to seek informed consent from Mrs. M whether she should be given the painkiller or left to suffer. However, it is also unethical for the care givers to refuse to take action and leave Mrs. M suffer and eventually dies without assisting her.

LO2 Impact of policy, legislation, regulation, codes of practice and standards on organisation policy and practice

2.1

At the work place, policies, regulation, legislation, and codes of practice and standards provide guideline on the way to execute daily activities. Implementation of these policies, legislations, and other requirements remains critical to foster smooth operations and delivery of health and social care. In the organization I work, policies are implemented after a thorough research is done. This is to ensure that the policies and regulations add value to all the stakeholders. Sometimes they are interpreted to ensure that everyone understands them. When implemented, supervisors coordinate to ensure they are well applied. Some of the policies include, reporting on duty in time, attending seminars and training, and wearing uniform while on duty. Codes of practice includes, remaining professional, upholding to integrity, honest, respect, autonomy, and embracing diversity (Healy, 2011). Laws such as Data Protection Act and Control Of Substance Hazardous to Health Regulation (COSSH) are taught and providers expected to adhere to them always.

2.2

There is always need for local and national policy requirements to conform to another or to enhance service delivery. However, this is not always the case. This can be achieved through creation/development of working documents that will help provide information on the various health or social issues at the local level (Healy, 2011). Another way is through establishing of local demographics to ensure that they are factored in when coming up with these policies. It is also important for leaders at both local and national level and other stakeholders to consult and make agreement on various issues. There is also need to modify some of the policies to meet certain requirements of some organisations at both local and national level.

2.3

The codes of practice, regulation, policies, and codes of ethics established impacts on the organizational policy and practice in different ways. The motivation or purpose of these policies and laws is always to improve the quality of health and social care (Healy, 2011). Improvement of services is evidenced with reduced health problems, reduces discrimination, less waiting times and experienced staffs. The policies as well foster standardization that contributes to adherence to ethics and codes of practice. Other benefits of the policies, legislation, and regulation are that they allow clear expectations and ensure protection of both the service users and staff. For instance, users are protected through such laws that require data privacy, confidentiality and informed consent laws. Employees as well can easily sort redress of issues of their concern.

Despite these benefits, the policies as well may have negative impacts. The cost of formulating and enforcing as well as implementing the policies is high. Period of transition is also elongated and this may cause disruption of services, there is also higher chance for the administration to experience some burden in enforcing the laws. On some occasions, service closure is likely to be experienced jeopardizing provision of health and social care services.

LO3 Theories that underpin health and social care practice

3.1

Different theories exist that apply in both health and social care practice. Some of these theories include psychodynamics, behaviorism, psychosocial theories, social systems, and developmental theories such as Freud, psychosexual stage theory, Piaget’s cognitive developmental stage theory and Eriknson’s psychological stage theory. Health and social care providers must understand different aspects pertaining to age, the culture, and the stage of development among others that help in provision of care (Carlson et al., ; Neil, 2010). Dynamic psychology focuses on human behaviors, their emotions, feelings, and their relationship to early experience. Social workers and health care providers can use these theories to understand the psychology of people, hence render appropriate care.

3.2

Different social processes have different impact on the users of health and social care services. Social processes includes gender,  education levels of people, the culture, employment rates, attitudes and values people hold through socialization, resource distribution, sexuality and opportunities available. For instance, if people are literate, their level of understanding is higher, hence has the ability to learn easily and take precautionary measures quickly than illiterate people. These social processes therefore, may lead to isolation, domination, inequality, exclusion, stigmatization, marginalization, and discrimination. For instance, people with low level of income are likely to be discriminated when it comes to accessibility of health care compared to those high levels of income. Isolation as well may happen especially when the people perceive themselves or their culture to be superior to others’ cultures affecting the quality of care.

3.3

Inter-professional working relationships have been embraced in health and social care settings. This approach requires professionals to collaborate to render higher standard of care (Addy, Browne, Blake, & Bailey, 2015). Professional understands their roles as they learn for one another. For instance, in a health care setting, Nurse, GP, physiotherapist, occupational therapists, and assistants can collaborate in their work, while in social care, carer, and social workers can as well collaborate. One benefit of this work arrangement contributes to achievement of agreed outcomes, improves the quality of relationships, ensures care continuity, ensures provision of holistic care, and enhances easy identification of professional goals (Day, 2013). Furthermore, this arrangement acts as a safety net when it comes to provision of care. The other benefit is resource conservation. Resources such as infrastructure can be shared

LO4 Development and implementation of health and social care Organisational policy

4.1

As a health care provider, I have a role and responsibility to promote delivery of better health care to all patients. All patients deserve equal treatment. I have to create a cordial working relationship through effective communication. Furthermore, is my responsibility to respect all service users and all stakeholders, uphold to autonomy, respect other people rights, and be honest when rendering health care. I have the duty to uphold to good practice when rendering services such as keeping health records well and embracing codes of ethics. In the incidence where a 20-year-old Black Hispanic woman with pregnancy refused to accept transfusion of blood, I have the responsibility to engage her and persuade her to accept. I also have the right to inform her on the consequences of her decisions. She has her right and if she insists, I will have to take the next step of forwarding the case to the senior health provider to ensure that I am not to blame for her future complications in case they occur.

4.2

I have contributed on several occasions in development and implementation of health and social care organizational policy and believe that through such contributions, remarkable changes have manifested. I take time to read existing policies and other content to understand them before initiating changes. Through reading, I am able to identify areas that require amendments. I also express ideas frankly on what I feel require adjustments. I also participate in consultations as experienced in the case of a 20-year woman that refused a blood transfusion. I had to share this with my seniors. I also adhere to quality assurance systems, get involved in clinical governance, as well as contribute in the process of making decisions.

4.3

Every organisation must put in place mechanisms to achieve good practice requirements to deliver quality health and social care services. My recommendations to meet good practice are herein. Organizations should have clear codes of ethics and professionalism and ensure compliance. Continuous training of employees as well as service users on health and care is paramount to improve service provision. It is also important for the institutions providing health and social care services to be accredited before being granted a go ahead to render services. The organization should also open avenues to share ideas and views from users and service providers. Listening and providing feedback will go ahead to build positive working condition that will contribute to delivery of quality services. Decision-making should be open to all the people for them to have a sense of belonging as experienced in the case, I sort further direction from the seniors when I reached a stalemate. This will improve the level of satisfaction and performance. Peer support and supervision is also critical to improve service delivery. People should also be each other keeper and should share with one another good practice.

Conclusion

It is the responsibility of all stakeholders to contribute to high quality services. Principle of support has explicitly provided a platform of ensuring that appropriate services are provided. Service givers need to be competent to render quality services respecting the rights of patients and others. Similarly, other users must as well respect the service providers. Codes of ethics, regulations, laws, and policies set require proper implementation. All stakeholders should take part in their implementation to warrant success. As a health practitioner, I must remain committed, respect other people rights and adhere to codes of ethics to deal with issues such as ethical dilemma and conflicts. My motivation is to impact positively on anybody provided they are of human race.

References

Addy, C. L., Browne, T., Blake, E. W., & Bailey, J. (2015). Enhancing Interprofessional   Education: Integrating Public Health and Social Work Perspectives. American Journal Of Public Health, 105S106-S108.

Broady, T. (2014). What is a person-centred approach? Familiarity and understanding of   individualised funding amongst carers in New South Wales. Australian Journal Of Social  Issues (Australian Social Policy Association), 49(3), 285.

Carlson, P et al., ; & Neil, R. (2010). Psychology: The Science of Behaviour. United States of America: Person Education. pp. 453–454.

Day, J. (2013). Interprofessional Working: An Essential Guide for Health and Social Care             Professionals, Thomson Learning, 2013. ISBN: 978-1408074954

Fish, J., & Karban, K. (2014). Health Inequalities at the Heart of the Social Work Curriculum. Social Work Education, 33(1), 15-30.

Healy, J. (2011). Improving Health Care Safety and Quality (Law, Ethics and Governance), Ashgate, 2011. ISBN: 978-0754676447

Markwick, A. (2013). Person-centred planning and the recovery approach. Learning Disability Practice, 16(7), 31.

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