Nursing Home and Health free essay sample

The responsibilities of employers and employee for maintaining health safety in a workplace Health and social care settings also face potential hazards and injuries, so policies and legislation are need to promote and implement in the health and social care workplace. Employers and staffs are responsible to create and maintain health and safety environment in the workplace to protect services users and themselves as well. Employers have responsibilities to protect the health, safety and well-being of users, employees and other people who might be in their organisation. Employers must do whatsoever it takes to achieve it. This means ensuring that staff and others are protected from anything that may cause harm, efficiently controlling any risks to injury or health that might arise in the workplace. It is an obligation for the employers to create health and safety environment in the workplace and they must follow the policies, legislation and laws which is enforces by the government and local agencies. We will write a custom essay sample on Nursing Home and Health or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Employers must take part in determining and identifying hazards and risks in the organisations. They must ensure that all the equipment which are being used to serve users are well checked and maintained the quality to avoid equipment related injuries and hazards. They will arrange training for the staffs regarding health and safety in their organisation. They will help staffs to increase their knowledge regarding their service and health and safety. They will do regular risk assessment in the organisation. Managers and supervisors must supervise employees and monitor their work regularly and make sure that employees are following organisation’s policies and laws correctly. If any staff having some problem or doing something wrong, managers and supervisor therefore will help them to solve the problem or correct them. They will implement health and safety policies and laws in the organisation and monitor procedures and practices regularly. The employees’ right is to work in a safe and healthy environment which are given by law and normally can not be changed or removed by employer. It is the employee’s duty to follow and maintain the health and safety guidelines and procedures for all time. They are the responsible to provide health and safety to the users and themselves. They will look for potential harm and hazards and injuries in the workplace and report those immediately to managers or supervisor, to take appropriate actions against those matters. Poor knowledge and skills may cause injuries and harm in the workplace for poor handling of equipment and tools. Large equipment must keep out of the way for safety reasons. Equipment and tools must be handling with proper knowledge otherwise it may cause serious harm and injuries to staffs and users. Chemicals and medicines must be kept in secured place which must be locked for all time and only certain people have access to those. Service users also follow the health and safety policies and procedures for themselves to keep them away from potential hazards and dangerous situations. 1. 3 Analyze are the health safety priorities in a workplace. Health and safety policies and procedures play an important role to maintain healthy and good environment in the workplace for users, and workers. It is vital to follow and maintain health and safety policies as it safes people from harm and injuries and help staffs to accomplish their work on time and increase their efficiency. Healthy and safe environment gives workers the opportunity to do their best as much as possible. Users and others will feel secure as they are being cared correctly and given the best quality of service and they do not worry about workplace related accidents and risks. Sometimes carer has to perform physical works like lifting heavy objects, positioning and transporting/ transferring users. By doing this type of work carer need concentration about what they are doing or about to do. A slightest mistake in positioning, movements or stepping may cause serious injuries to the users or care workers. Users who is suffering from various problems like visual impairment, hearing and balance problems and so on. Visual impairment like blurring of vision as people gets older, unable to identify light and color and hyperemia, myopia and so on cause burns, bumping to wall or objects, going to the wrong room or place, taking the wrong medication and so on. Hearing and balance problem causes fracture and head injuries. Other common accidents of elder peoples are cognitive disorders, osteoporosis, and arthritis and so on. Healthy and safe environment minimise the occurrence of accidents. Authorities are responsible for setting policies, priorities and implementation in the workplace. Employers or home care managers will ensure health and safety for the employees first and then for the users. It is recommended to provide neat and well ventilated environment in the health and social care setting. All the setting will be properly fitted in the health care settings like carpets should not be folded or wiring must not be in the busy spaces and open. Stocks and documents are properly arranged according to the function and frequency of use. Warning systems are properly implemented in the workplace as staff can notice any risk immediately. Staff must be aware of health and safety guidelines. Ignorance of policies will augment health and safety related risk and injuries in the workplace. Any appropriate training must be providing to the staff to use risky equipment. First aid kits will be available in the working area and if any occurrence happens they will take immediate aid for reducing the injury or damage. Support handles and hand rails will be provided sufficiently to those places where people pass more frequently or the area with high possibilities of falls and trips. For preventing slipping rubber mats will be used. There will be emergency evacuation passage in the working place. Cleanliness is very important for health and safety. A clean environment is less vulnerable to get diseases. Food poisoning may happen for poor food sanitation, storage and preparation. Cook must be aware of proper food sanitation and food handling. Toilet, kitchen and public activity room must clean and clean regularly. Staff must clean their hands with sanitisation before start their work or serving any users. All kind of waste will be managed and disposed properly. Sharp objects should be placed in puncture resistant containers prior to disposal. By following the above mentioned process it is possible to maintain health and safety in the health and social care workplace. 2. 1 Analyze how information from risk assessment helps in care planning of a workplace. What is a care plan? Each user must have they own care plan such as: care home, residential care home, hospital and day center. User’s care plan will cover: Their eligible needs How they would like to achieve their goals They pass life and family members Health condition and medication They diet Any support that carers or other are willing and able to provide, and carers views A risk assessment, including any actions that will be taken to manage risks Who should be contact in case of emergencies The name of the person responsible for implementing, monitoring and reviewing the care plan The date of the next review of the care plan The care plan should be reviewed after the first three months, and then at least annually. The review looks at whether the goals that were identified in the care plan are being met. It should also review these goals to make sure they are still appropriate, and check that any risk assessments are up to date. Risk assessment is a compulsory and essential in the workplace to ensure health and safety. The risk assessment comprises identification of risks and hazards, which is responsible for that and who will be affected by risks and hazards and how to minimise risks and improve the health and safety condition in the workplace. After doing the risk assessment, manager and supervisor will get some useful information which will help them to formulate a plan of care. The purpose of risk assessment is to protect users and care providers from abuse, harms and risks. The first step of risk assessment is to identify the causes, things, situations and practices which may create risk in a working environment. Risks in the workplace are chemical or devices, work environment setup hazards, disorganised wiring, slippery flooring, loose carpets, high stacks of boxes, disorganised stuffs and cluttered pathways and so on. An expertise or an officer will observe the workplace and identify those substances which may create harm and risk in the workplace. This help to concern staff and avoid those harms and risk occurring in the workplace. The second step is to identify who are at risk for those hazards. An experienced and skilled person will serve the infected person or who is vulnerable of those risk. Vulnerable persons are exposed minimally or prevented in such a way that they will fall less in injuries or accidents. The third step is to make a plan which is a combination of prevention and solution to minimise risks in the actual care plans. After making the plan, all the plans are executed and implemented. After the implementation, plans are reviewed regularly and revised if necessary. 2. 2 Analyze the impact of health safety policy on health social care practice and its customers. Healthy and safety working condition is very beneficial to all people who directly and indirectly related to health and social care practice. Health and safety policies have impact on the practice and the institution, the employers, staff and service users. Carer likes to demonstrate their effort and show their best performance in healthy and safe working environment. If employees are free from illness and injuries they are ready to work more and increase their efficiency. Any staff who works in a healthy and safety environment they will do their best to stay in the job for longer time and they become satisfied. Healthy and safe environment improves the quality of practice as staff is free from hazards at their working place. Also users become beneficial for health and safety policies practice. Therefore users won’t be worried because they are served by safe hands. Users are confident about their health and safety and they feel safe to stay in the health and social care setting. A service user will be at easy to get service from familiar care workers whom he/her knew before. A care worker becomes trustworthy to a service user and he/her can serve the user for longer period of time. The practice of health and safety is very important for an organisation as it provides healthy and safe environment to the staff, service users and so on. Organisations face fewer losses and risks and threats if health and safety policies are practicing properly in the organisation. 2. 3 Explain what are the ethical dilemmas faced by the care worker when ensuring health safety of client. What is a dilemma? It is a situation when someone has difficulty to make a choice between two or more things. Users, families, and carer sometimes face difficult decisions about medical treatments that involve moral principles, religious beliefs, or professional guidelines. Health care ethics is a thoughtful exploration of how to act in the right way and make good choices, based on beliefs and values about life, health, suffering, and death. The most common ethical dilemma arise when a user do not want to take their medicine which is very much important to control their current medical condition. According to the legislation, service users have the right to refuse treatment. They have the right to stop medication at any time they want but it is the care worker duty to prevent detrimental complication in the medication routine. In here, care worker faces ethical dilemmas as users do not want to take medicine and it is their responsibility to render services to the users to promote health and well-being. Sometimes this kind of situation can leads to serious issues like for not taking medicine, the user died and a case is filed against the carer. If the care worker forces the user to take the medication, it will break the user’s rights and it will be consider as abuse. Sometimes users refuse to be cleaned which is very dangerous for them as they seriously injured by open wounds, surgical wounds or ulcers. If the wounds is not properly clean it’s may cause serious infections. Some users who are having mobility impaired will not take help from carer because they want to be independent. It is the users right to decide either they will take the help or not but it is a big risk. If the user falls in an accident for not taking help from the care worker, care worker may sue for neglecting their work and responsibilities. Ethical dilemmas are a complex and diverse issue in health and social care work. Sometimes care workers face some kind of ethical dilemmas when ensuring health and safety of the users. Sometimes they have to work on company policies and regulations which contradict the moral values of the care workers which may cause ethical dilemmas. When there is a conflict between care worker or users or someone else, it may affect staff can hinder the quality of service.