The effects that are caused by discrimination have huge effects on the patient, care worker and even the organisation. By promoting equality and treating everyone, the same is different and wrong; as the truth is that, everyone is a different individual. We should be striving to promote equality where these essential differences are recognised.
Ethnical principles are those, which can be judged fair. These principles or ways of working are based on moral beliefs and judgements. Key ethnical principles are:
- justice
- autonomy (maintaining or increasing independence of service users)
- beneficence (taking actions that benefit service users)
- non- maleficence ( not doing harm to service users)
Equality and rights should be met if these ethnical values are applied to all individuals.
Promoting individual rights takes many forms and includes the needs to help service users express their needs and preferences. There are many individuals who need help and support to “speak up for themselves” whilst others are able to express there needs and wants quite forcefully. Those service users who have learning difficulties, use a second language or are ill are some examples of the many who might need help to express their needs. To help support individuals needs, you must:
- Keep service users informed.
- Ask questions.
- Use a preferred method of communication.
- Listen effectively.
- Do not make assumptions.
- Ask others for help if necessary.
Active support involves taking the appropriate action to support a service user when they need assistance or guidance. It does not mean “taking over”. As many service users are reluctant to as for support and will try to deal with issues themselves, providing active support requires a sensitive approach.
Support can take many forms and it is important to recognise both the forms and the amounts of support that may be required. All of our service users are individuals and therefore need varying amounts of support, in some cases on a daily bases. The main forms of support could be summarised as:
- Service related information (medication, appointments, care planning)
- Physical support (dressing, eating, washing, moving)
- Social support (entertainment, friendships, listening)
- Mental health support (coping strategies encouragement, confidence building)
Balancing the rights of an individual with the rights of another can be difficult to achieve. The health and social care worker needs to develop good negotiating skills and an open communication style. Balancing rights is often about dealing with conflict and tensions. Dealing with conflict requires a range of skills including:
- Seeing both sides of an argument.
- Being willing to listen and take action.
- Taking action quickly and not leaving things to fester
- Not taking sides
- Looking for quick, but appropriate situations.
In health and social care, the promotion of anti-discriminatory practise takes place at a whole range of different levels. Actively identifying and challenging discrimination is achieved through government policies and guidelines. Legislation can promote it by making discrimination illegal and anyone who decides to discriminate can be faced with fining or imprisonment. The codes of practice can promote it by then damaging the reputation of anyone who fails to comply to these rules.
