The importance of legislations and policies in health and social care settings, and write about how they promote the safety to individuals

by saralouise (student)

Unit 3 – Task 3

Legislation, policies and procedures for health, safety and security

I am going to produce a report outlining the legislation, policies and procedures relating to health, safety and security and their influence on health and social care settings. My report will also include how they policies promote the safety of individuals in a health and social care setting.

The government have certain legislations which are designed to keep patients, service users and staff in all public environments safe and secure. This is extremely important as if certain rules and regulations are not put in place then unnecessary accidents may occur which could be otherwise avoided. In some places the acts may be too careful, whereas in other places the acts may not be careful enough in which it is down to the individual setting to put their own rules into place. If the rules laid out are not followed properly then this could cause serious problems, especially in a health and social care setting. My report is only correct on the basis that all people follow the correct procedures exactly as they are worded. If they are indeed correctly followed then the results of the procedures are overall very good. I will go through the acts in question one by one and give examples of them in a health and social care setting. I will then go on to explain how they promote the safety and security of the individuals.

The health and safety at work act (1974) is the legislation which states that it is the general duty of employers to keep themselves safe and provide a duty of care. It requires employees to report any hazards to their employers. It is the responsibility of the employer to train all staff and to do regular risk assessments. They also have to test all equipment that will be used in the setting. In a hospital there may be a patient who has uncontrollable bleeding which may happen to spill onto the floor. It is the responsibility of the staff in the setting to put up hazards signs and to clean the spillage up quickly and hygienically. This is promoting the safety of the individuals in the hospital because firstly they have been warned of a spillage by having the warning signs there. Secondly they know that they hospital is aware and they are cleaning it up. If the patients were not aware and then someone tripped and hurt themselves then this would mean the hospital would not be following the Health and Safety at work act. If the person who had spilt blood all over the floor had a disease such as HIV and someone then caught HIV from that blood that would also be the hospital’s responsibility. Just by putting a warning sign reduces the risk and by cleaning it straight away takes the risk away completely.

This is a preview of the whole essay

The food safety act (1990) is the legislation which sets out the requirements for all food handlers who then hand the food to the consumer. In a care home there will be food handlers. It is their job to follow this act to ensure no raw meat and vegetables get mixed together as this could create food poisoning. It is also their responsibility to ensure anyone with allergies does not consume food that has touched the said item. This act promotes the safety of individuals because it makes sure that places handling food cannot legally mix foods. For example, if someone states that they are allergic to onions and the food place just wipes the onions away then this is breaking the food safety act. By having this act it ensures that cleanliness and complete and utter regard is there for food handlers and service users.

The food safety (general food hygiene) regulations (1995) provide the guidelines on practical advice on the fundamental rules of food hygiene. Food has to be of the right temperature and cooked thoroughly. In a nursery all work surfaces need to be kept clean, different knives need to be used as well as clean chopping boards. The staff needs to make sure bins are emptied regularly. This act promotes the safety of individuals because without it workplaces can be careless. This act requires food handlers to check the temperature of chicken before serving it which can be very dangerous if it is not cooked properly. It prevents unnecessary bacteria to grow and it prevents children or other service users getting poorly unnecessarily.

The manual handling operations regulations (1992 – 2002) protects people from getting hurt usually service users and employees. In schools, care homes and hospitals you cannot pick people up yourself even if they fall. You have to leave them there until you have the machine to pick them up. This is to prevent more damage to them and to prevent you getting damaged. This does promote the safety for individuals because without it people can lift things the way they want, carry things the way they want, stand on things they shouldn’t etc. and cause serious harm to themselves or someone else. Now the act is there the service users and staff can feel absolutely sure everyone can do things safely without hurting themselves at work.

The Reporting of injuries, diseases and dangerous occurrences regulations (1995) RIDDOR regulates the statuary obligation to report deaths and injuries that take place at work. Accident books are available in any health and social care situation. The staff are required to write absolutely everything down. In a nursery if a child falls in the playground then this needs to be noted and the parent needs to sign it to make sure they have seen it. If a child comes to nursery with a bump on the head this needs to be noted to make sure the parent does not blame the nursery. This promotes the safety of the child because it makes sure the nursery is always on hand to know when, what time and why an accident happened. Say problems occur in the future and an accident happened at nursery (nurseries are required to keep their accident records for 21 years) then they may be able to link it to something that happened to the child then. This may prevent lots of testing or anything for the future.

The Data protection act (1998) defines the UK law on the processing on identifying living people. In a youth residential home all files need to be locked away in a filing cabinet or they need to be in a password protected computer. This is to protect the child. If someone finds out the information like where their child is and they have been abusing the child then they may be able to kidnap the child or even kill the child. This would all be down to the fact the act was not followed properly. This is how the act protects individuals.

The management of health and safety at work regulations (1999) is an act for employers to be able to manage health and safety efficiently. All this act states is that in all health and safety settings the employers need to train the employees in the health and safety laws. This protects individuals because if the staff had no idea what to do to protect the service users then either the service users or the staff could get hurt. If the act was not there the employees may not waste the money training the staff as they do not have to. Then unnecessary accidents will happen. With this act it prevents a lot of serious and not so serious injury and prevents time wasting in sorting the problem out.

The control of substances hazardous to health regulations (2002) COSHH states general requirements on the employer to protect employees and other persons from the hazards of substances used at work by using risk assessments. All health and social care settings have to have a risk assessment done every so often. Some places need to have a risk assessment done every day for certain tasks. This promotes the safety of individuals because it tells employers of the potential risks to staff and service users and tells them how to combat them and the steps to do this. This makes emergencies or accidents less of a panic because everyone knows what they are supposed to be doing. Risk assessments are essential when working with people that cannot care for themselves which is obviously very common in a health and social care setting.

The care homes regulations (2001) make sure that the care home is safe for the service users and staff. There are many different examples of how this affects care homes. Firstly there always has to be confidentiality in the work place. This promotes the safety of individuals because sometimes, especially in youth homes, parents may not be able to know where the children are and if the staff or employers are really careless with their details then the wrong people might be able to discover where they are. Employers need to check that staff have no offences, making sure the staff are fit for purpose. This promotes the safety of any service user as then they are treated properly and all their personal needs are met. There have been examples of employees not treating service users with respect and this is completely breaking these regulations. This shows how important it is and how the regulations promote the safety of individuals. All of the children need to be checked in a youth home because otherwise the staff may not know what they are dealing with. If a situation occurs they may not know how to deal with it or why it is happening. This really does promote the safety as they could also hurt another service user or themselves.

The civil contingencies act (2004) tries to prevent emergencies from happening and if they do it tells you what to do. If a child is getting abused at home then social services will come in and take them away from that home environment and from their abusers. This act is one of the most important of all the legislations for promoting individuals safety as if an emergency did happen and people did not know what to do then this could result in death or an extremely serious injury to a service user. Communication is key with this and it is down to employees to make sure that all of the employers know about what to do in case of emergencies in their settings.

The fire precautions (workplace) regulations (1997) is there to make sure precautions are in place to try to prevent fire for example fire doors, fire drills etc. All nurseries have to have fire doors that have to be shut at all times and they should also have accessible fire exits. In the health and social care sector it is of the upmost importance for the safety of the service user to have a good fire procedure. Fire needs to be detected straight away as there may be disabled service users or older adults to try and evacuate from the building and this will take time. With children in nurseries or in youth care homes fire doors etc are essential in the safety of the service users because they will not have the capabilities to inhale as much smoke as a healthy adult. Every aspect of this act needs to be thought about in detail and a good plan needs to be set out. Practises and fire drills need to take place to make sure people know what they are doing and to make sure there is time to evacuate everyone safely.

The health and safety (first aid) regulations (1981) make sure that the employer has someone there at all times to tend to someone who needs first aid there and then. In nurseries there has to be a first aider present at all times. To promote individual’s safety this act is ideal as if a service user needs first aid there is always someone there to deal with them primarily and if it is serious then until the ambulance arrives. Without it people could even die.

In this report I have aimed to explain the acts in detail and why they are so important to health and social care settings. Without any of them nothing would be able to run and if something did go wrong then the setting would be liable.

Sara-Louise Billows