Health and safety in a care environment - relevant legislation.

Cerys Rock Health and Safety

BTEC ND Health

Health and Safety in a Care Environment

Health, safety and security policies and procedures are what organisations must legally follow in order to fulfil the required needs for health, safety and security.

The overall responsibility for every employer within the health and care setting is to be aware of health and safety legislations and provide an environment that is safe to be in. The employer has the responsibility to ensure that each member of staff is properly trained and is also aware of health and safety procedures that are relevant.

Legislation, policies and procedures promote health and safety of everyone in the setting. Legislation is the law, a policy is what is written by the management of the setting to interpret the law and help everyone understand, and the procedure is what is actually done to follow the law.

I am going to describe the roles and responsibilities of 4 other key staff members that contribute to the welfare of the workplace.

First Aider

Within my placement, there is an appointed first aider. First aiders within a setting will have a key role and responsibility for the safety of others. They are trained in how to give immediate basic help to people in cases of injury or sudden illness. This is done up to the point of access to another health professional such as a nurse or doctor takes over the treatment. First aiders will minimise the risk of serious or worsening damage. Common accidents within my last placement at a day nursery would be trips and falls, cuts and grazes, choking, asthmatic attacks to those with asthma, and any other related health problems that would be prone to cause issues and illnesses. It is within legislation that workplaces with a sufficient number of employees have a First aider be available at all times. The Health and Safety (first aid) Regulations 1981 says that it is priority that ‘employees receive immediate attention if they are injured or taken ill at work.’ - (hse.gov.uk)

The setting must have a first aid box, there must be a relevant number of first aiders present, and every member of staff must know of the first aid arrangements. Failure to do so will lead in prosecution.

Health and Safety Inspector

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Health and Safety Inspector

A Health and Safety inspector’s job is to ensure a setting is of safe working conditions and that all risks are under control. They can offer specialist advice to settings about health and safety. They inspect how the setting is run, making sure that good safety practice is being demonstrated. If they find something that is unsatisfactory, they have the power to take action by passing notices for improvement or to prosecute, for example, the inspector may inform that the setting needs to improve on it’s hygiene within the kitchen before a certain date, otherwise further action will be taken.

Risk Assessor

Risk assessors are very important within settings. They find and record all of the potential hazards, and find ways in which they should be improved. This information is put into a document called a ‘risk assessment’ which every setting should lawfully have.

A staff member can be appointed as Child and Vulnerable adult protection officer. This role includes being the first point of contact if any child or vulnerable adult’s concerns arise. It is their responsibility to provide advice and information on the protection procedures and encourage these to be adhered to. ‘Maintain confidential records of reported cases and action taken and liaise with the statutory agencies and ensure they have access to all necessary information.’

I am going to examine policies and procedures that comply with legislation for a day centre for adults with learning disabilities.

Food Safety Act (1990)

The Food Safety Act (1990) is put in place for the purpose of protecting consumers health and wellbeing by protecting food from anything that could be harmful. The act makes it illegal to serve any food that does not comply with food safety. The law aims to ensure that food must not be misleading in what it claims to be, food must be safe to eat and must be provided at the right quality and standard expected. It helps protect the consumers as staff must show due diligence towards handling food, which will then stop cases of food poisoning such as Salmonella, Staphylococcus aurous etc. In the day centre, the clients participate in activities, one of which is cooking. This cooking is then shared by all members of staff and clients. To promote the Food Safety legislation, the day centre has a hand washing policy which teaches good hygiene practice to the clients and staff also. This helps protect the food from physical or bacterial contamination. This policy being present in the day centre educates the clients with learning disabilities about food safety and promotes the importance of hand washing throughout every day life.

The day centre has other policies such as keeping the kitchen clean and tidy, and checking over all kitchen equipment regularly.

RIDDOR

RIDDOR (The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995) is self explanatory from the name, however this legislation raises the legal importance of employers to notify the Incident Contact Centre (ICC) in event of occurrence such as; ‘deaths, major injuries, over 3 days injuries, work related diseases, dangerous occurrences, dangerous gas fittings’ - HSE . By reporting such events, it enables evaluation of risk so that workplaces can be advised on how to reduce future risks.

In the day centre, supervision must be there at all times, as many clients are more prone to accidents than others. The day centre has good communication skills, having a meeting every Monday which assesses each of the clients and any issues that have occurred, e.g. accidents. These accidents are recorded, while the staff are now aware to pay even more attention and to report back if the issue continues or gets more serious.

This policy works very well within the setting. There is good communication between the staff, client and client’s families and everyone is kept well informed of situations, to help prevent injuries and accidents. The staff are genuinely interested in the welfare of the clients so their record of incidents is made good use of.

First Aid

‘The Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981 require you to provide adequate and appropriate first-aid equipment, facilities and people so your employees can be given immediate help if they are injured or taken ill at work’ -HSE

First Aid at work is a legal requirement as previously mentioned. People may have an accident or become ill in a workplace; not necessarily due to work, but either way for whatever reason it is absolutely necessary to ensure that the person receives immediate care and attention and medical services promptly notified if necessary. So for this to be possible, the employer should ensure arrangements are made.

In the day centre, First Aid is extremely important as risks in this setting are high, due to client medical requirements, prone to accidents etc. Each support staff is a qualified first aider. Each support staff is educated in each clients medicine routine and they keep these notes on file. There is a fully equip first aid box allocated at the back of the room where everyone is aware of its whereabouts.

COSHH

COSHH is a regulation for the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health. This applies to all substances that can be a hazard to our health, and ensures that they are controlled properly within a setting. Substances can be toxic, corrosive or irritant. Under the COSHH regulation, substances must have warning labels on its container, for example, bleach.

Within the day centre, many hazardous substances are kept away in cupboards, not necessarily unlocked, as the day care centre tries to teach responsibility and independence. To get the best of both worlds, the day centre follows all of this law responsibly by cleaning products being labelled and in the right container, and stored away appropriately. Drugs are stored in a locked cupboard to prevent unauthorised access. The service users are supervised and guided at all times and are taught how to properly use cleaning products. In detail, they are told what could go wrong if they put a substance on their hand and rubbed their eye, for example. First aid assists this legislation as everyone who works there is on hand to carry out first aid, if an accident with using substances does happen to occur. Some clients may be skin sensitive to certain soaps, for example, so the centre uses skin friendly soap and where needed, personal protective clothing will be worn, such as disposable gloves.

Bibliography

http://www.hse.gov.uk/firstaid/legislation.htm

http://www.hse.gov.uk/riddor/riddor.htm

http://www.hse.gov.uk/firstaid/

http://www.hse.gov.uk/coshh/basics.htm