Safe Guarding, Anti Social Behaviour and Domestic Abuse assingments

The no secrets guidance builds on the government’s respect of human’s respect of the human rights act of 1998 creates a framework which all responsibility agencies works together to ensure that they protect vulnerable adults who may be at risk of abuse. This provides health and social care services to work together in a partnership which is also known as the health act 1999 to ensure that policies and procedures are in place. Employers should provide training to both staff and volunteers of awareness that abuse could possibly take place in the care setting. Also training on what type of abuse there is and the responsibility’s to the procedures that individuals have to follow. It is also the responsibility of the employees to identify the vulnerable adults in the work place and to be able to handle individuals behaviour as they may be challenging they will also have to be able risk assessments on individuals that they feel they are vulnerable.

HCPC Standards of proficiency was created to ensure safety and effective practice in the professionals that we observe and regulate. These standards of prophecies are set out for social workers which should know and understand from the training that they have so that they can register with the HCPC. This sets out a high expectation of an individual working in social work. It Is important that individuals recognise and respond appropriately to situations where they have to share information to the safeguarding services to ensure that service users are protected from harm. It is important that people working in this setting know why they need to protect and safe guard vulnerable adults and promote the wellbeing of vulnerable adults. Also individuals need to understand how to work in environment that shows challenging behaviour and need to understand how to work safely and the appropriate action in the environment that they are in. (HCP,25/10/15)

CQC outcome 7 inspects settings to see service users are protected from abuse an peoples human rights are respected and upheld. It is important that employers comply with regulations such as taking action to identify and potentially prevent abuse from happening in a health and social care services. It is important that individuals react appropriately when they sense that abuse has occurred in the setting or there may be a greater risk of abuse happening. Also for individuals who may find that they are in a situation that they could potentially be assaulted by an individual in a health and social care setting they may have to restraint an individual in an appropriate and reasonable manner. It is important that they restraint them in a respectable and dignity way to respect their human rights and so that individual who is being restrained is free from harm when doing this. It is important that people understand how beliefs and the values of the service users may prevent the response to safeguarding concerns.

Multi-agency workers come together to share information that different agencies have about the vulnerable adults. Having these meetings will ensure that each multi agency’s workers has the opportunity to share valuable information that they may have for everyone to understand the extent of the situation that may occur. Each individual will have their own pieces of information to share that others may not know about the individual. The agency’s that may be apart if this could be police, social services , health care professionals , specialist services and the CQC. The multi-agency’s workers maybe having this meeting to share information about an individual called Jake who is a 25 year old individuals with learning disabilities, the social worker of jakes has called a meeting about him to find out what others have to share about them. For example they may be a police officer there and share that a number of occasions they have been called to this individual’s residence as the neighbours have complained about the noise levels. On arrival they see that he lives with three other individuals aged 18-20 he was situated in the corner of the room very quiet and reluctant to talk to use. Also the health care professionals who may be involved in his care stated that he has been missing appointment and has not rescheduled these, also when calling him a male answered who was violent and abusive over the phone.

Policies and procedures

It is important that workplaces in the health and social care sectors have policies and procedures in place that provides training for all members of staff through out there career. On their induction individuals may have to go for manual handling training this allows individuals to know the correct way to move individuals without causing harm to themselves and to the individual they are trying to move. They will learn the correct places to put their hands and correct way to lift with their back to prevent injury. Also individuals that go to work in health and social care they could have training on how to ensure that individuals are safe from harm by receiving safeguarding training which may consist of what policies and procedures are used in the practice, how they should respond to the concern that vulnerable adults are being abused or may be coming to harm. The lone worker policy is designed to help reduce the risk of individuals being at risk when out on their own working with individual’s that may potentially cause harm. There are many policy’s and procedure that individuals need to follow to ensure they are safe and also that the individuals are safe for example before going in to the environment of others, they need to do a risk assessment to potentially identify things that can cause harm to them and to see the severity of going in to the environment on your own. Also before they go into the individual’s home they need to see what the situation is in the home and who the perpetrator is and create a profile of the individual by putting a picture of the person in this so that they can identify the person if they are in the home so they know not to enter or to leave if they are. They will also ensure when they are in the home that they are seated closes to the exit so that if they are in danger they can leave quickly and faster. If lone workers find that they are in a situation of danger and need assistance they can call there office stating a code word that everyone knows and the individual will be able to call the police and send them to the location that they are in. They will find the location on the timetable of the worker that they have left before they left to go to people’s houses. It is important that individuals working in the care setting follow the confidentiality policy and procedures have a legal duty of confidentiality to protect individual’s personal information this is also under the data protection act. This is important so that information about an individual is not shared outside of the care setting as anyone can be listening to what you are staying and this can potentially put that individual in danger of harm. Information should only be share to other health care professionals that are involved in the individuals care and ensure that they do this in a secure environment such as in a meeting so other do not hear about this individuals personal information. When sending a referral form it is important that you share accurate information about the individual that they suspect that are being abused this is so that they do not wrongly accurse the wrong individual of abuse. Whistleblowing is when an individual that works in the health and social care raises their concern about a potential abuse that may be accruing in your work place. This is vital that individuals raise their concern about someone being abused by telling their employer or the CQC so that they can stop the abuse happening. Many individuals may feel like they cannot report that there is abuse taking place in the care home that they are working in as they may feel that may potentially lose their job for blowing the whistle. The whistle blowing policy ensures that workers that blow the whistle are not discriminated against and that they will not lose their job for doing their job properly and trying to protect individuals that they care for. It is important that all health care settings has accurate record keeping skills to ensure that all information is correct as these are legal binding documents and if they are not ups to date and miss information out individuals can be prosecuted or that these documents may need to be used in court one day. All documents if written by hand have to be on black ball point pen and that there is no spelling or grammatical errors and that the information is clear to understand and to read. It is also important that records are factual and not the thoughts of yours as thoughts are not what actually happen. It is also important that all files on the pc’s are in password protected files and all paper files are filed correctly in a locked cabinets.

Working in partnership with the adults using services will reduce the risk of abuse as staff members will be able to gain information of an individual if they suspect that they are being abused also they could have unexplained bruising which they can ask them about. Also the care staff may ask the adults they care for if they have seen an individual being abused or mishandles by the care staff in question and also see if they have been treat unequally by the perpetrator. They may have asked these induvial because they are in the care home environment with these individuals all day and will have more off a chance of witnessing the abuse happening to others. Family’s will be able to reduce the risk of an individual being abused by ensuring that they look at care homes in great detail so they ensure they have picked the correct environment for them to go into. Also they can look at the rating of the health care setting this is so that they get the best quality of care that an individual can have. Informal carers can also prevent abuse these can be individuals who are volunteering they may see that an resident has constant bruising or they may hear a care professional emotionally abusing an individual they can be shouting at them and stating they are useless and they shouldn’t be hear. They will be able to inform someone that they can resolve this issue such as the manager of the organisation and also they could inform the CQC.

The CQC role is to make sure that individuals using a health and social care setting to ensure they will provide service users with a safe, effective, compassionate and a high quality of care. Their role is to ensure that services meet the standards of quality and safety and also protects the rights of individuals that are vulnerable including the individuals who have a mental health issue. They also carry out in-depth investigations to look at care across the system to ensure no abuse is occurring.

It is important that individuals who work in the health and social care setting ensure that they are always on high alert this is so that they prevent accident from happening if they see them accruing. Safety alerts may be issued when an issue that without action being taken promptly may cause fatal injury to individual using the service, this could be dangerous equipment that may have been discovered on an investigation of the environment.

In health and social care setting service users in a care home will be monitored to establish whether or not there medical conditions have improved or is deuterated and will need further medical treatment. Also staff members will be monitored to ensure that they are providing the best possible care for individuals they are caring for and they will be monitored to ensure they are following all policies and procedures when working and keeping record correctly .It is important that individuals in the care setting have the option to make decisions of their own such as with their care plan, they may want to make the decision who they would like to help with the personal care such as they prefer a female to help them to the bathroom or to wash them.

An assessment may be carried out of an individual to look at an what needs they may be needed and to discuss them with the individuals, an assessment could be formed in a meeting where a professionals who are a part of the individuals care come together to do an assessment to ensure that they get the correct support. This should look at what needs are important the most and should identifies the risk of what will happen if they do not. Also an assessment may be carried out on a care professional to see if they are capable of working with vulnerable adults and also if they have been abusing individuals before they will be doing this to assess them on how dangerous they are.

It is important that care homes are reviewed often this is so that people’s safety are met and that safe practice is used in the environment to prevent abuse taking place. They may also review the care staffs performance working in this care setting this Is important as overtime staff members may lack in performance this will also prevent the abuse taking place.

It is important that all care professionals take into consideration all complaints that they receive both of family members and service users even if they have a disability or mental illness that may cause them make complains regular. This may be because they are concerned about the care the service user is getting or that they may find the service user has unexplained bruising. The service user may complain about a member of staff stating that they do not like them or that they do not want them to care for them as they are shouting at them causing emotional abuse. The manager may miss the warning signs that an individual is being abused by not taking the complaints seriously.

M2-Domestic abuse

The human rights act reduces the risk of domestic abuse as this legislation ensures that the individual who is a victim to domestic abuse gets the correct care that they needed. People who are a sufferer of domestic abuse has the right to be protected from the torture and mistreatment as article 3 of the human rights act states that torture accrues when the perpetrator causes physical and mental suffering of an individual. This peace of act can reduce the risk of an individual from suffering from mental torture in a care setting as staff members will be able to spot individuals that may be causing a resident domestic abuse this could be by them shouting at the individual stating that they are a waste of space and calling them stupid. Staff members that are aware of what domestic abuse is will be able to spot the signs of this type of abuse and will be able to report this. Care professionals should not be inflicting this sort of treatment on individuals as they are there to protect them from this sort of treatment and are there to treat them as part of an individual. (Equal Human rights 20/10/15) Also individual that are a victim of domestic abuse may be subject to inhuman treatment this is when individuals have physical assaults such as hitting or slapping an individual. In a care setting an individual may be restraint physically for not complying to the individuals demands causing them to be physically restraint the individual causing physical harm to the individual using extensive force this legislation will reduce the risk of harm to the individuals as all members of staff have agreed to this legislation creating them to have a legal duty to respect and protect a person’s human rights. (The British Institute of Human Rights 20/10/15). Anti-social behaviour criminal and policing act 2014 protects individuals that may be forced in to marriage by their parents. This legislation was made illegal in the UK to force individuals in to a forced marriage that they do have not consented to, the perpetrators can be sentenced up to seven years in prison. Being forced in to marriage can cause the victim to have a great deal of pressure as they do not want to bring shame to the family. This can cause physical, emotional and psychological abuse this is because there family has made them to think that they are bringing shame on to their family by emotionally abusing them. Section 121 of the anti-social behaviour crime and policing act had created two offences if a person who causes violence, threats in the intent to force someone in to a marriage which causes the other person to enter the marriage without full consent. (Family law week 20/10/15) Also family members may lie to the victim by telling them that they have to go abrade to visit a family member as they are ill and there health is detreating, this is so that they can get the individual out of the UK without forcing the person to go abroad then when out of the UK and in another country they will force them to get married and may have to stay in that country and live with the husband. This new legislation will be able to stop individuals in the UK being manipulated in to marriage, this allow the victim’s to have someone to turn to if they are being forced unwillingly in to marriage. If there is enough evidence to show that they may be potentially married off the individual’s parents who are the perpetrators will be arrested and can potentially serve seven years in prison.

Individuals who may be a subject of domestic abuse have the right to have access to NHS services this is under the NHS constitution regulations. This is a service that provides free health care to individuals and service users have the right to adequate health care and also have the right to complain about bad health care. (NHS choices, 20/10/15). Individuals that suffer from domestic abuse may access services from their local GP, they may talk to the GP as they can confide in the doctor to help them with their abuse and the physical effects that this has caused them. The doctor may refer them to a mental health doctor such as a therapist to help them with their emotional distress, the therapist allows the individual to open up about how they are feeling in a confidential environment. The victim may just want someone to listen to them and values what they are telling them, the therapist may give them information that will help them with their abuse. This can reduce the risk of the individual being in a domestic abusive relationship as the doctor or therapist may have told them that they are being subjected to domestic abuse and offer them help to leave this relationship.

Lone working is when individuals are working all by themselves without supervision of others. These individuals have a high risk job who work with all type of individuals of all illnesses and situations of abuse, such as an individual may work with an individual who is in an environment of domestic abuse. Being in the home with this type of environment can cause individuals to be in a state of vulnerability if the people become angry and distressed about the professional’s presence in their home. Before individuals go out on a home visit it is important that they do a risk assessment of each individual to see if they can be violent towards the care professional, they will also need to know information about the person that is inflicting the domestic abuse this is so they can create a profile about them also they will need a picture of him so that if they turn up they know what he looks like and can leave immediately. This will reduce the risk and harm that may potentially happen to the professional. By creating a time table of the receptionist so that they know where you are when you are out during the day, this will allow people to know where you if they need you or if you have not turned up to one of your appointments. It is also important that if the individual is running late on their appointments that they call the receptionist to move all there appointment forward an hour or the amount of time they need. To reduce the risk of harm in an environment where the perpetrator may be present or not ensure that you are seated close to the exit this is so that you are able to remove yourself from the environment that may cause you to be in danger of physical harm. Also to reduce the risk ensure that the work place has a code word that everyone knows for when you need assistance from the police. They may call the office and use the code word which could be “Please tell Maggie that I’m going to be late” this will make the receptionist put the phone down and call the police and of the timetable you provided they can see where you are at that time. It is important that there is a safety policy in place that action the organisation of the lone worker is taken out to manage the person’s safety risks to the staff. Ensure that all lone workers are trained in to knowing how to recognise the early sign of an individual becoming aggression , the individual will them be able to prevent this turning to violence and calm them down. (SHP blog 20/10/15)

Multi- Agency workers can help reduce the risk of the domestic abuse as there are different services that the victim is under have all come together to talk about the individual and how they can help the individual. These individuals will help others in the group understand what each and everyone knows of her so that they can provide the best care possible for them. The therapist may share information about the person that is not breaching there confidentiality agreement, but stating that they have developed a drinking problem that helps them release the stress that they are under. This will help individuals give an insight in to what problems they are having and can help them try to overcome this by referring them to the alcohol team. Also the lone worker may state when in the victim’s home she noticed that the place was dirty and that the child was always in dirty clothing and that they are concerned about the child’s welfare and may talk to social services about this. They may also ask the doctor if they could proscribe the individual with anti-depressants to help bring up there mood so that they are more happy.

Neglect

Care standards act 2000 act reduces the risk of individuals being neglected in independent hospitals and all other facilities. Care standard act 2000 reduces the risk of individuals being neglected in care homes by staff members this allows and ensures that individuals receive the best care that is possible. The act sets ups a new system of national minimum standards of services such as a private and voluntary sector residential and nursing homes. This act covers regulation of personal domiciliary services this means that individuals may be concerned with the care given in a care home. (Scie, 23/10/15). This will reduce the risk of individuals in a health and social environment being neglected and given inefficient care as this act states what kind of care should be given to keep a person safe from harm, their dignity and wellbeing intact and a great quality of life for service users.

Safeguarding vulnerable adults can help reduce the risk if any adults being neglected as this legislation ensures that residents are protected from harm that could be caused by staff members. Safe guarding plays a vital role for people in health and social care setting this allows individuals to have support that they need to live a life to the fullest and free from harm and abuse. This act ensures that individuals who are seen as unsuitable to work in an environment with vulnerable adults do not have access to work in these environments. (Scie, 23/10/15). To ensure people who have applied to work in a health and social care environment have a DBS check this is the disclosure and barring service which allow potential employers to make the right decisions on individuals that are potentially going to be working with vulnerable adults. This will reduce the risk of neglect as the employer will know if individuals have previous criminal convictions that may put an individual’s life in danger. Also these individuals that have been deemed unfit to work with vulnerable adults have been placed in a list which is called the barring system this is a list that puts people who have been barred from working with individuals on a system that an employer can access to ensure that they do not get to work with the individuals. This system reduces the risk of individuals being neglected as the perpetrators will not be able to access health and social care services to work. The CQC also known as the Care Quality Commission these are the people who regulate health and social care throughout England these individuals ensure that the health and social care sectors are a safe environment and that they provide a high quality of care for people that need it. This will reduce the risk of vulnerable adults being neglected in a care homes/settings as they will be monitored and have regular inspections to make sure that they are meeting the correct standards of care. By having these inspections in place it will reduce the risk of neglect as the CQC inspectors will be able to spot if people are being neglected by staff members. They will also challenge all providers and the people with the worst performance will get more attention this will stop individuals from receiving a poor standard of care and reduce the possibility of neglect. (CQC 23/10/15)

In health and social care an individual who has been a victim of neglect staff members or CQC member may notice a resident that is being neglected. This can cause individuals to have pressure soars, bruising and broken bones. The care professional will have to mark these down on a body map of the location of the injury and the correct size. For example a resident may have been neglected and this has been reported by a member of staff and the CQC agency has come to investigate what has happened and what this has caused to the individual they will look at the injury’s to them and mark this down on the body map so if the individual has a bruise on their ribs and is about 2cm long. They may also take a photo of the bruise so when building up a court case about the individual who has been neglected has proof of the bruises that they have sustained and where this was. It will reduce the risk of neglect as if they did not map down or take pictures of the burse’s they will disappear before the court case leaving no evidence that the staff member has been neglecting the individual. They may get there job back and allowed to work with vulnerable adults and can neglect others.

An individual who expresses there concern about service users in a health and social care setting if they are being abused are known as whistle blowers. This is because they express their views of individual’s wrongdoing to managers or to the care quality commission (CQC), if you feel that individuals are in danger of abuse it is important that you tell someone. May people who have been a whistle blower may have been treated unfairly and fired from work for trying to prevent and reduce the risk of people being neglected and abused in a care setting. This will reduce the risk of neglect as the individual will reduce the risk of this abuse carrying on as the care quality commission will investigate this allegation and resolve the improper care that is being given.

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