Risk Assessment Criteria 1

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Jenni Lappin HND Care Practice FT Risk Assessment

Risk Assessment Criteria 1

Introduction

In this outcome I will explain the various concepts and dimensions of risk and what their potential impact can be on service users and service users rights within the care sector.

What is risk?

The definition of risk is “a hazard, a danger, exposure to mischance or peril”.  (Oxford English Dictionary 1997)

Alaszewaki and Manthorpe define risk as “the possibility that a given course of action will not achieve the desired outcome but instead some undesirable situation will develop”. (Alaszewski & Manthorpe 1991)

My own definition of risk is making decisions that you know will have either a negative or positive outcome therefore risk assessment is calculating the negatives and positives and trying to assess which is better, on doing this you should have the best result of that decision.

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Parsloe suggests that welfare staff have to take into account 3 different types of risk within the care sector.

  • Risk to service users from other people, usually their own relatives.
  • Risk to users themselves from their own behaviour  
  • Risk to known or unknown others from service users (Parsloe 1999 p9-10)

When you define something as a risk you are potentially creating losses and gains, for example if you have to make the decision to put an elderly person into a care home you will be creating a series of losses and gains for that ...

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