- Equality
- Empowerment choice + independence
- Effective communication
- Maintaining confidentiality
- Right to dignity + privacy
- Right to safety + security
Human rights are something we all share. Whether you are a child, adult, client or anyone. They are about recognising the value and dignity of all people. Human rights are about respect, fairness, justice and equality.
There are a number of basic rights that people all over the world have agreed upon, for example, the right to life, freedom from torture, other cruel and inhuman treatment, free speech, freedom of religion and rights to health and education.
Human rights are the same for all people, everywhere, male and female, young and old, rich and poor, regardless of their background, where we live, what we think, or what we believe. Respect for human rights help bring strong communities, based on equality and tolerance in which everyone has an opportunity to contribute.
Service users have a right to be respected by their carers when attending the care centre. Carers need to make sure they respect the clients and look after them as adults, if they undermined them, the client may feel isolated, depressed or show their anger. If carers fail to do this they could feel themselves being warned by the manager. This is supported by the care value of rights to dignity and privacy.
All service users have a right to be given equal opportunities. Carers of the centre have to ensure that all the clients are given equal opportunities. If one client is given abetter opportunity then another, it may cause a problem. All the clients must equally develop their self-confidence and boost their self-esteem to ensure that all clients are given the same chance to succeed. This is supported by the care value of equality.
All service users should be empowered by the carers to make their own decisions, they can follow a communication board so they know what the next activity of the day is, which they follow on a day to day basis. This empowers them to gain independence and confidence to help them make decisions for themselves.
If a service user has personal problem they need to talk to someone, they have to be able to confide in a member of the staff. The staff member must ensure that they keep this information secret and respects their confide and can help them with any future issues that may occur. This is supported by the care value of maintaining confidentiality.
Ao2
A potential barrier to access is something which prevents or stops a service user from receiving a high level of care and positive and care environment. It is a barrier that afflicts us under certain circumstances or only troubles some of us. These barriers could be physical and sensory, for example effecting people with disabilities, older people and those with responsibility of young children.
Barriers that only afflict under circumstances, for instance, could be, public transport, this could act as a barrier. If public transport is needed irregular public transport acts as a barrier. Many people with special needs don’t have access to an independent car. People with physical disabilities have special needs, access to vehicle must be lower, and this will be easier for people on wheelchairs.
To provide a positive care environment, organisations should build homes near to houses and roads that can access the service either by public transport or by car.
Location could also be a barrier, if you a service user has no transport or may not drive due a disability, there may be difficulties reaching the residential home. However to make this a positive care the care home offers transport services to those that may not be able to make it to the care home due to any reason. This bus takes and returns service users safely to their homes making it easier to reach their destination.
Another barrier that can afflict service users could be the opening times of the day centre. Reasons being are that some settings only allow short (not extremely) opening and closing times. Therefore service users might not be able to make it. For example if the client has an opticians appointment.
To provide a positive care environment care practitioners could open the care homes open a few hours earlier and close then a little later so that everyone can access the setting even if the service users can not access the service within certain hours.
Language is yet another potential barrier for the service users from access to a service. If the service user could not take part in a particular activity because English is not their first language then the consequences of that might be that they feel discriminated against as they are being left out of the group. This may result in them being marginalised and social exclusion.
To provide a positive care environment services should provide translators so that the service users can communicate with the care practitioners effectively.
Another important and one of the main barriers to access could be the physical features of the setting itself making it difficult for service users to access goods or services. The design or construction of the building could become a barrier for certain people. Examples of this can be staircases, doors and gates, toilets and washing facilities. An alternative term used to describe this is lack of access.
To provide a positive care environment care practitioners and organisations could build ramps, have wide doors, lifts if the service is not on the ground floor, handrails in the toilet and low door handles so that wheelchair users can reach the handles. Because of the law, Disability Discrimination Act 1995, all of these things are necessary.
One last barrier could be unfair discrimination. This is when someone is treated unfairly then others and not given the same amount of respect. This can affects service users as their self esteem could drop rapidly and they also may loose their trust in the care workers. However to overcome this staff are trained well and also organisations follow certain policies and procedures by law.
To provide a positive care environment care practitioners should treat the service users equally and fairly regardless of their race, culture and the way that they dress.
All the above could cause the service user to end up being marginalised, this is when individuals and social groups who are prevented from accessing social resources or enjoying equal rights in society. Social exclusion is denying people access to full citizenship and participation in normal social and economic activities.
However under the Disability Discrimination Act care practitioners must make reasonable adjustments to overcome the barriers. They can do this by removing the physical feature altogether. This can involve changing it so it no longer creates a barrier, allowing disabled people to avoid using the physical feature and providing a reasonable alternative method of making the goods or service available to disabled people.
When I searched the internet for my setting, I found a range of policies and procedures they follow, some of which I have explained below.
Organisations and care practitioners work on the system of referrals. Referrals are classified into three categories these are: Self referral
Third party referral
Professional referral.
A self referral is when the service user applies directly for the service either when the service user comes into the setting in person, by a phone call or a letter.
A third party referral is when another person applies for the service for another person. For example if a son phones the GP surgery on behalf of his father or if a neighbour phones for their neighbour.
A professional referral is similar to the third party referral but the person who applies on the other persons behalf is a professional such as the care practitioner themselves.
Ao3
In order to run a safe and secure environment, the carers have to be able to keep the clients and the staff free from any problems that may effect or upset a service user. Staff must also follow their own Codes of Practice and know what to do in case of emergency to protect all the service users.
The care setting that I have chosen has policies and procedures in place to ensure a positive care environment. It is essential for care homes to have policies and procedures about how they ensure that the residents are treated freely from discrimination. The policies and practices of the home ensure that physical or verbal aggression by service users are understood and dealt with appropriately.
Policies are detailed statements, which are to be followed by all care workers under any circumstances, which are provided by the care service. Without these policies he setting would have a negative environment, which could then also lead to further prejudice and discrimination. Also there are procedures, which are written rules which care workers must also abide by.
Equal opportunity policy
This policy has been put in place as it helps to make sure that service user within the organisation are treated equally regardless of their background which could include their gender, race, ethnic origin, disability, marital status, family commitments, sexuality, age or religion. The organisation has to include equality of opportunity in all aspects of employment. The service user must always be treated the same and have same access to services
This policy promotes rights of the user because it makes sure that the care practitioner allows each and every service user to be given an equal chance. The care practitioner must value the service user’s beliefs and empower them to make decisions. This will make the service user feel better within themselves and also feel cared for.
Abuse policy
This policy involves domestic violence for example if a service user has experienced abuse from one of the care workers. This abuse may take several forms, whether it is physical, sexual and emotional. This abuse policy is and must be in every health care setting and has to be taken very seriously.
This creates a positive care environment as it helps the service user as well as the care practitioner to feel that they are being treated correctly.
Confidentiality policy
In a care setting trust and power is very important between a service user and care worker. Especially when it comes to confidentiality. Confidentiality is very important in the health care services. Infect it is illegal to share information or talk to people outside of the health care organisation regarding client’s private information. For example data about the service user, only team members involve in the care of the service user may have access and be privy to the client information.
This data could include all kinds of information about the service user for example the client’s name, age, sex, religion, marital status, address, phone number, social security number, diagnosis, health condition, discharge dates, start of care, schedules, home chart, clinical records, and computerized information.
This ensures the service user is treated in a positive way because it makes the service user feel that they can trust their carer and that they feel secure that private information is kept confidential.
Health and safety policy
This policy not only requires care workers and service users to keep themselves or others out of danger. The law is also there to protect the public from these dangers. Whether it’s just visitors, doctors, nurses, social worker or anyone that comes into the building. The health and safety policy clearly sets out how you manage health and safety in an organisation or care setting. This could include having signs, when washing the floors, having electrical equipment tested before use, putting things away after use, wearing gloves when dealing with personal issues and other basic daily issues.
Ao4
Care practitioners use guidelines and codes of practice to empower clients by 7 principles that support the care value base - Sex Discrimination - 1975
- Race Relations – 1976
- Disability Discrimination – 1995
- Data Protection – 1998 (1984)
- Human Rights Act - 1998
- Children Act – 1989
- Community Care ACT - 1990
- Care Standards Act - 2000
The Sex Discrimination Act (1975)
This act made it unlawful to discriminate between men and women on employment, good and facilities. It also made it illegal to discriminate on the grounds of marital two forms of discrimination: direct and indirect discrimination.
In order to meet this law the organisation must make sure that all service users as well as the staff are treated equally regardless of their gender/age.
The Race Ration Act (1976)
This act made it unlawful to discriminate on ‘racial grounds’ in employment, housing and services. Racial ground means colour, race, and nationality, ethnic of national origins. This act makes it an offence to incite or encourage racial hatred. As in the law against sex discrimination, both direct and indirect. This act made it unlawful to discriminate between men and women on employment, good and facilities. It also made it illegal to discriminate on the grounds of marital two forms of discrimination are made unlawful.
It is very important for organisations to make sure that this act is put into practice or it could be taken as a very serious offence. Therefore all service users must be treated with the same amount of respect and definitely must be valued regardless of their background.
The Disability Discrimination Act (1995)
This act is designed to prevent discrimination against people with disabilities in employment access to education and transport, housing and obtaining goods and services, including access to health and social services. Employers and landlords must not treat a person with disabilities less favourably than a non-disabled person. New transport must meet the needs of disabled people, and colleagues, shops and other services must ensure that disabled people can use their services.
The Disability Discrimination Act is yet another very important act which if not followed could be a serious offence. This could result the employee to being sacked and not gain a job in that profession again. Therefore the organisation has to make sure that all the service users again are treated with same amount of respect as others. If a setting has a staircase in it then by law must have a lift as well to make it easier for people in wheelchairs who have trouble accessing all parts of the building.
We have acts of parliaments to ensure that people are protected from being discriminated. The Sex Discrimination was made unlawful to discriminate between men and women on employment, goods and facilities. It’s also made illegal to discriminate on the grounds of marital status. The Race Relation Act is unlawful to discriminate on racial grounds in employment. The acts make it an offence to incite or encourage racial hatred. The Disability Discrimination Act is to prevent people discriminating against people with disabilities and getting them jobs due to their disabilities.
I think that these acts have been successful over the past many years as they have been put in place and have been followed by. The strengths of the laws above are that so far they have been a success. Many people have followed the laws very well whereas weaknesses might be that some people probably take longer to act upon the laws.
Redress is a term describing the act of putting things right and making amends following a complaint, there are several forms as shown below – an apology
- Financial compensation also known as damages
- Revised procedures
- Better instructions of staff
- Disciplinary procedures against care workers
- In serious cases the care worker may be removed from their job and be unable to work in that profession again
Service users have the right to complain whatever the reason may be as long as it is sensible. Most issues whereby there has been a complaint has been if the service user has ever experience racism, discrimination, unfair treatment, or maybe the quality of service they have received hasn’t been at highest. There are two types of complaints that an individual can make, this could be formal or informal.
A formal complaint is a more serious complaint, for example a case of neglecting. Serious examples of discrimination or prejudice. This can be a very serious offence and can result in very bad consequences.
Whereas an informal complaint is a very minor sort of complaint, where you can simply go to a GP, ask for a complaint form and make a formal complaint. Depending on how bad the issue is the complaint will be will then be passed on to an ombudsman (which I have explained below).
Equal opportunities - Everyone is committed to be given equal service. This means we will not treat you any differently because of you’re: sex, colour, race, nationality, ethnic group, regional or national origin, age, marital status, disability, political or original belief, sexuality or class.
You have rights under the Data Protection Act to have a copy of your personal data. There are expectations to this right. The main one is where we feel that releasing particular information to you would prejudice a proper investigation of your complaint. Please make any request fore quest for personal data to the deputy ombudsman at the ombudsman office.
An ombudsman is a third party that conflicts on a confidential basis. It involves a person to look into complaints about an organisation and to give disputants information on how to resolve the problem at issue. Using an ombudsman is a way of trying to resolve a complaint without going to court. Using an ombudsman is also sometimes quicker, and certainly lest costly, then going to court
Disciplinary procedures against care workers -Care organisations have internal complaints disciplinary policies and procedures to enable them to deal with any alleged breaches of their equal opportunity policies. These complaints and procedures should enable both clients and care workers to pursue a complaint against unfair discrimination if experienced any. If the care worker has discriminated against a service user then in serious cases the care worker may be removed from their job and be unable to work in that profession again.
Regulatory bodies are organisations that monitor and regulate the behaviour of members of a profession. Examples of professional regulatory bodies could be doctors, nurses, midwives and health visitors, social workers, dentists, pharmacists, occupation therapists, physiotherapists and many more. These organisations monitor the behaviour of their members and deal with complaints of disciplinary procedures against them.
Bibliography
Throughout this assignment I have put numbers in brackets, next to key terns/skills or definitions. This then refers to the bibliography that is set at the back of my assignment, which shows where I got the Information. (1) www.braknell-forest.gov.uk
(2) www.britainUSA.com
(3) www.stop-discrimination.info