Qualification - BTEC Higher National Diploma specification in Health and Social Care
Unit Name - Law, Policy and Ethical Practice in Health and Social Care
Unit Code - T/616/1636
Unit Number - Unit 1
Unit Level - Level 4
Unit credit - 15
Assignment Title - Law, Policy and Ethical Practice in Health and Social Care
Learning Outcome 1: Explore the legal framework within which health and social care practitioners operate
Learning Outcome 2: Describe key legislation, national and organisational policy of fundamental importance to the health, care or support service practitioner
Learning Outcome 3: Interpret the law in relation to key ethical and professional Practice Themes in health and social care
Learning Outcome 4: Apply law and policy in line with regulatory and ethical requirements in a relevant practice setting.
Instant Unit 1 Law, Policy and Ethical Practice in Health and Social Care - BTEC Higher National Diploma specification in Health and Social Care Assignment help and Solutions And Unmatched Support- All To Take You To The Top
Part A
Explore the legal framework within which health and social care practitioners operate by describing key legislation, national and organisational policy of fundamental importance to the health, care or support service practitioner.
Solution:
Essay manual
Introduction
ABC Care home is a recognised name in the industry of healthcare services that treats dementia, provides residential care and nursing to people. The organisation goes with the morale of providing expected care to people such that none of the individuals in London get exempted from receiving healthcare. It is expected from the newly joined nurses too, to proceed with the same ethics in giving care to the patients. The purpose of the essay is to present a training manual for the newcomer care staff. The manual will serve as a guidebook providing a roadmap to the newly joined care staff regarding how to act in ABC. Several legislations, rules, and codes of conduct prevailing in the care industry are referred for better understanding. Even, my personal experiences are also drafted in the manual to provide a practical understanding to the care staffs about acting in a healthcare setting or providing the care support.
Training manual
Evaluating the association of ethics with law and their significance in organisational policy and practices for protection of rights and wellbeing of the people taking the healthcare service (D1)
Laws in society are created concerning the prevailing ethics, which in turn impacts the organisational policy (Avery, 2016). When the health care and support services work complying with the law, then the wellbeing of patients is also served. In a simpler sense, laws or codes of conduct in the healthcare industry are made to prevent the exploitation of users or patients by the care organisations. So, the care workers need to be aware of the laws that regulate ethics in a healthcare setting. People expect the nurses to follow the basis ethics while rendering a care service to the needy. Abusive behaviour and negligence to patients are not at all accepted in the healthcare industry. The Human Rights Act (1998) governs the protection of the rights of healthcare service users (Kavanagh, 2015). The legislations are also developed in the industry to pinpoint compliance with ethics while indulging in a care support service. This is because, for the protection of wellbeing and rights of people, it is necessary to give them proper respect and access to the health service irrespective of their spending capability. It means when an organisation provides the care service, then it should respect and care for the right of individuals to whom they are providing the service.
Analysis of the relationship between ethics and law relating to the professional duties of a heath care practitioner (M1)
Now, when it comes to the professional responsibilities of a health worker, then that law governs how the healthcare staffs work. For example, the Human Rights Act (1998) talks about the preservation of the rights of patients, so in that case, the care staff is expected to perform in a responsible way like behaving nicely, being kind and modest (King, 2015). As it can be seen that the law regulates the morality of giving deserved rights to people, that ethics should be reflected in the professional responsibility of a health care worker. Hence, the professional responsibility of care staff includes collaborating with medical professionals, being moral while caring for patients, indulging in community education, and perpetuating ethical standards (Dyer, 2016). Expert medical professionals like surgeons and doctors do have the best knowledge of the medical needs of the patients. Therefore, it is expected from the nursing staffs to do consult with them while making decisions for patient wellbeing.
Being moral towards patients is depicted in the behaviour that care staff pursues towards them. The care staff must take care of their body language, attitude and have compassion which interacting with a patient or somebody from the patient's family (Mokkenstormet.al, 2018). Spreading knowledge also comes under the responsibility of care staff. They have an ethical duty to spread knowledge among patients about preventive measures to avoid disease. Lastly complying with the ethical standards set by laws like Human Rights Act (1998) also comes under the professional responsibility of care staff (Kavanagh, 2015). Therefore, it is analysed, that prevailing ethics leads to a law, which in turn sets the moral standards that a caring staff needs to follow while conducting in a professional healthcare setup.
Description of the relationship of law with ethics relating to the work of health and social care practitioners (P2)
The health and social care practitioners work to provide care to the patients and save them from diseases. However, the nature of work is influenced by the legislation that is followed in a country, where the health care setting is situated. Like for the ABC Care Home, which is located in London, the UK, The Health and Social Care Act (2012) was introduced in the UK, to eradicate inequalities in the provision of health care services (Kavanagh, 2015). According to the legislation, everybody in London or the entire UK should have equal access to health care service support (NHS, 2015). The legislation is intended to remove discriminating people while providing care service based on financial status, caste, religion, and colour. It thus brings the ethical principle of being kind and helpful to everybody who comes to the nursing home seeking care (Sanderson, Allen &Osipovic, 2017). Similarly, this thing is depicted in the working nature of the care staff, like the way they start the treatment for people seeking healthcare support. Going with the legislation and ethics established by the same, it is highly recommended to the care staffs to start treatment, as soon as a person approaches for care without making further delay.
The lifeline of individuals, matters most in the healthcare industry, so the intent of care staff should be first in saving the lives of individuals, without discriminating against them based on any factors (Kavanagh, 2015). Therefore, the combination of ethics and legislation gave rise to certain ethical principles that are ought to be followed by the care staff in their work. The baseline of those principles to serve equally to all people who seek medical care and to be compassionate towards users of the health and care service support system.
Summarisation of the features of different levels of policy and law (P1)
The levels of law and policy in UK comprise of procedures and code of conduct, regulations, legislations and constitutions.
The constitutional law develops the supreme law that governs the rights and responsibilities of a citizen towards the country(IFES, 2011). The international obligations are also included in the constitutional law. The cross-border trade agreements come under this level and the legislations are developed by the legislative branches of the government. One of the important features of the legislative policy is that it adheres to the constitutions and international obligations. Similarly, the regulation also constitutes adhering to the constitution and legislation levels. However, the code of conduct does not feature as a hard law, rather it is a written set of policies that an individual needs to abide by while working in an organisation or while staying in a community. For example, in ABC care home, it is expected from the staff to cooperate with each other and work for the best care delivered to people. So, it is an intrinsic code of conduct that the care staffs need to follow while working for ABC.
However, the nurses also need to keep knowledge about the constitutional laws, regulatory policies about health and care services. It means that the care staffs need to stay updated with policies and laws in the market and work accordingly. I joined ABC with minimum knowledge of policy and laws in healthcare. Though I have sufficient medical knowledge on providing care, the lack of legislative awareness was affecting my performance. Later I got rescued by some supervisor. So, I am suggesting to the future care staffs based on the hardships I faced while working as a care worker, due to the lack of legislative knowledge.
Summary
Caring for people lies in the core responsibility of care staff. Now to be responsible in that area, the care workers need to be aware of the ongoing laws and policies that take place in the industry. It helps them to provide more precise care to the patients by following the guidelines. Moreover, the awareness towards legislative changes makes a caring staff more responsible in their duties. Each level of laws and policy has a distinct feature that sets the new morale or ethic for an industry. The new care trainees must keep in mind that their behaviour is also a reflection of their understanding of policies and laws.
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Expanded essay
Reflection on the ways, specific tasks in healthcare service quench national professional level in a legal framework (M2)
The Health and Social Care Act (2012) is the first legal framework that provided the obligation for legal duties. The main motto of the framework is to dissolve inequalities in treatment and patient care (Levy, Ying & Bagley, 2020). The duties specified by the framework need to be followed by NHS England, Department of Health, and Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG). The duties suggest taking actions by the healthcare bodies for reducing inequalities in healthcare (Gurley-Calvez, Bullinger&Kapinos, 2018). The CCGs have the duty to eliminate inequality among patients regarding their access to healthcare services. This is also the specific task, which CCG needs to perform for complying with the national professional standard of inequality mitigation, as specified by the legal framework of the Health and Social Care Act (2012). The other tasks include providing health and social care services in an integrated way. The task of developing an annual commissioning plan explaining the process of discharge of duties to reduce inequalities is also reflected under the legal framework (Courtemancheet.al, 2018). Similar tasks need to be followed by NHS and other health care bodies. All of such bodies need to review their own plan to reduce treatment inequalities and record the same to check the effectiveness of their strategies. In this way, specific tasks such as the provision of integrated care service, taking care of inequalities, and maintaining a record of tasks done to eradicate the inequality meet national professional standards in the legal framework.
Comparison of the national and organisational policies and their impact in the provision of health care (P4)
The national professional standards in healthcare, as outlined by Health and Social Care Act (2012) are providing integrated care service and providing equal access to care service to all people (Bandaraet.al, 2015). However, there are also other professional standards nationally in healthcare set by Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care. The authority sets the standard wellbeing of patients, health safety, and voluntary registration of people who works in health and care. The national policy for regulating healthcare first began with NHS (Courtemancheet.al, 2018). In 1948, the policy started and aimed to provide equal health care for all, irrespective of people's ability to pay. As a result of that national health policy, NHS services are free of charge for the patients in England (NHS, 2015). However, organisational policies include data protecting, security to information, and confidentiality. Therefore, the organisational policies of the health care organisations in London and other parts of the UK, not only cover the health benefit of people, but also the individual necessities of people working over there. Again, the organisational policies also administer the confidentiality of the information shared by a patient to an organisation. For example, a person affected with HIV and does not want to disclose this information to others. In that case, an organisation in London is liable to provide the desired level of privacy to that patient. So, here also the care staffs of the sister care home in another location within London need to take care of all this.
The care staffs need to follow the organisational policy, where they are obliged to preserve confidentiality. The national policy also enables quality health services rendered to patient. Now, the organisation develops policies to provide that quality care to patients following the national policy.It is strictly instructed to the new care staff to take care of both the organisational policy and the national policy which providing care to people. The knowledge of both levels of policies will lead them to act more responsibly (Avery, 2016). For ABC Care homes too, the confidentiality of patients as well as the staffs working over there matters. Therefore, the organisational policies in health and social care cover extra to the national policies. Again, the national policies do have universal coverage. For instance, the national healthcare policy of the UK needs to be followed by all healthcare organisations residing in a nation. However, organisational policies are specific to the healthcare body itself and need to be followed by the staff only. Like the policies of ABC needs to be followed by care staffs working in that care home only.
NHS also designed a Health and Safety Policy (HSE) for the healthcare employees. The policy is meant to secure health workers' health. Similarly, the organisational policies also follow HSE by providing safe care to health workers, increasing medical facilities to them and giving paid medical leaves(HSE, 2021).So, it can be seen that the organisational policies are the derivatives of national policies, which are designed to support the same.The impact of the organisational policies on health and social care is greater than the national ones. This is because the policies are specific to the organisation and it is possible to check whether the policies are effective in implementation or not. Due to stringent implementation measures, they are much more effective. On the contrary, it is not as easy as organisational policies to check the effectiveness of national policies within every corner of a nation. In the UK, there are about 1910 hospitals in 2018, which is greater than the previous year's record (Avery, 2016). Therefore, the number of hospitals and care units are increasing in the UK over years. So, it is quite challenging to check and apply the jurisdiction if the national policy is not followed by an organisation. Again, under the legal framework of the Health and Social Care Act (2012), the national policy asks organisations to keep a record of the duties performed and the measurement of the same. Therefore, the national evaluation is performed based on the data fetched by the organisations regarding their performance of duties. Therefore, health and social care service is closely monitored by the organisational policies than the national policies.
Description of the relationship between legislation and national policies concerning health and social care (P3)
The legislation creates the law, based on which the policy is developed. A policy is a course of action that abides by the legislation. In the healthcare industry of the UK, the legislation provides the framework upon which different levels of policies are constructed such as national level and organisational level. For example, the Health and Social Care Act (2012) set the paradigm for letting access people care services irrespective of their financial status (Bandaraet.al, 2015). Similarly, organisational policies and national policies are constructed to ensure equal provision of health care services. The inequality in the provision of health care service is bridged through actions like checking the implementation of the care program, statistical analysis of people who sought care, and the number of people who received the care and expenses done in free care services. It clearly shows that all of the aforesaid actions comply with the legal framework set by the Health and Social Care Act (2012). Therefore, the care staffs need to follow the policy minutely, as it reflects the proposition of the act.
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Part B
Interpret the law in relation to key ethical and professional Practice Themes in health and social care by applying law and policy in line with regulatory and ethical requirements in a relevant practice setting.
Solution:
Reflection on observation on recent health work experience (LO3: M3, P6, P5, D2)
Critical reviewing ways practised by health, care and support service people for ensuring compliance and currency with national policies and legislation through ethical activities (D2)
Compliance in healthcare denotes the capability of hospitals and nursing homes to cope up with the national and organisational policies. In the modern context, the currency in healthcare entities is mostly considered as data (Bandaraet.al, 2015). The data constitutes patient information, details of staff and progress of treatment, and other vital details needed within a healthcare workplace. So, it is necessary to ensure both compliance and currency within a healthcare organisation. Now, the health, care, and support service practitioners can ensure compliance in medical service through tracking and monitoring, streamlining of workflows, preserving privacy, and assessing risks. Firstly, the tracking of compliance issues is important to keep things in line (World Health Organization, 2018). For example, the compliance of the aged care homes in the UK is checked by CQC. Care Quality Commission (CQC) ensures that whether the care homes work in compliance with the regulations set by NHS. So, here, in the real health care setting UK care homes, the strategy of using an external organisation to monitor the compliance with national policies is depicted.
However, CQC is not always successful in reviewing the compliance of organisations with national legislation and policies. As seen in the case of Whorlton Hall, in Durham, the rating of CQC on the organisation's quality of care to physically and mentally challenged people gone wrong. In the year 2017, CQC rated Whorlton as a fair organisation in providing care to disabled people(CQC, 2019). However, in the same year and the subsequent years as well, reports of poor treatment of abusive practices are found. Coming to the point of ensuring currency with legislation, the preservation of privacy is a useful way. In today's world, even the healthcare sector is filled with huge traces of big data. Proper handling of data is necessary to ensure currency with the national policies and legislation. Again, keeping patient information secret is also an ethical practice to ensure currency with policies and organisational code of conduct.
Risk assessment of the existing practices of an organisation is also an effective way to comply with national and local regulations. This is because assessment of risks gives an idea about the status of compliance with the policies that are executed by the organisation. Reducing errors by eradicating the assessed risks also comes under ethical practice, as it leverages the quality of healthcare service (Avery, 2016). However, risk evaluation might go wrong in the absence of expert predictors. So, care needs to be taken while checking the compliance and currency of an organisation's practices with the established legislations.
Suggested Observation Reflection LO3
Duration and date of observation
23.02.2021
Time: 10.A.M.
Description of the setting
I visited Hallmark care home in London in the aforesaid date and time. The care home provides residential care (home care), care for dementia, nursing and respite.
Influence and inform of national and international law towards fair and equitable treatment of people in care, health and support services (P5)
The Human Rights Act (1998) governs the rights and freedoms that people residing in the nation are exposed to (Bandaraet.al, 2015). Those set of rights enacted by the legislation can also not be breached by the public institutions. The legislation prevents the exploitation of common people from public bodies and other institutions. Now, health, care, and support services like NHS are also a public body and hence come under the regulation of the act. As a result, of which people in the UK receive equitable and fair treatment from the bodies. More elaborately, as the rule prevents discrimination among people, the nation citizens receive equal sort of care from the healthcare organisations. National Health Service (NHS) also provides free of cost healthcare service to those, who cannot afford care service.
The international human rights law is developed by the United Nations, which ensures the rightful activity of people (BBC, 2019). The law protects individuals internationally from being exploited by ruling bodies. Access to health services is internationally recognised as a fundamental human right. The UK possesses a signatory to the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESR) (Avery, 2016). It signifies that the UK is bound by international law to provide access to health care services to people. Hence, the organisation where I worked that is the Hallmark Care Homes is also bound to provide that fundamental right to people. Both national and international laws on human rights thus identify receipt of care service as a fundamental right of people, which should be delivered by health care entities. Therefore, it influences fair and equitable care service and treatment to be received by all.
Implementation of different policies and legislation for healthy and safe conduct in practice (P6)
In Hallmark, I have seen that the newly hired care workers are first led through a code of conduct that the organisation follows. The practice is meant to keep the care staff well aware of the organisational practices, even when they are treating patients by going to their homes. Following the Health and Social Care Act (2012), along with the equal provision of healthcare, it also believed in providing safe care to people. So, in the induction round and also through a weekly board meeting, the board members have been seen to instruct the care staff to consult with medical supervisors and doctors at every moment they need support. Though they provide the care, by visiting patient homes, yet they are always in touch with the medical practitioners of Hallmark.In this way, the home care setting used the legislation to design policies for safe and healthy conduct in the practice.
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Analysis of current health and social care legislation or policies for identifying their importance in informing responsibilities and rights of health, care and support service providers for providing equitable and safe care (M3)
The recent health and social care legislation in the place of the organisational setting is the Health and Social Care Act (2012). The legislation has the importance in informing the health, support, and care services to provide equitable and safe care. Through this Act, the clinical commissioning groups (CCG) are informed of their responsibility to promote the NHS constitution and ensure that the patients, staffs of the organisation, and public bodies are aware of the same. Under the Act, CCGs also have the responsibility for improving the quality of healthcare services (Dyer, 2016). They have the right to intervene in the medical system of the healthcare bodies and ensure that they do follow the NHS constitutional rules. So, the overall right and responsibility of the CCGs as guided by the recent legislation is to take care of the accessibility and quality of health care services. The law has helped to leverage the scope of care and support services among people. Similarly, my organisational setting Hallmark also comes under the supervision of CCGs.
Evaluation
From the observation, I learnt that it is necessary to keep an eye on the upcoming code of conduct and legislation to act in a more responsible way. Being a caring staff, it is necessary to think about the life of the patient first. As soon as a patient seeks a home care, the care home must send nurses to the patient's house and treatment should be started immediately. I need to develop my knowledge on recent additions in the healthcare policies as systems are developing on are daily basis.
Critical incident analysis of Whorlton Hall (LO4: M4, P8, P7)
Background
In the Whorlton Hall case, the inspection is done by CQC gone wrong as it omitted the abuse and poor treatment carried out in the hospital. It is a hospital-based in Durham County with 17 beds (BBC, 2019). It provides care to people having a physical and mental disabilities. The key elements of the incident is the abusive behaviour done by the hospital upon the physical and mentally challenged persons and wrong inspection by CQC of the situation, which later got recovered by the BBC documentary.
Association among law, ethical requirements and policy relating to the Whorlton Hall (P7)
The legal requirement featured in the case is the NHS's Zero Tolerance policy. The policy says that any person in the healthcare service team neither the patients should be abused physically (Vincent et.al, 2020). Physical violence is strictly prohibited under this zero-tolerance policy of NHS. However, in the case of Whorlton Hall, traces of coercive control is found, where the patients are brutally tortured by the doctors. So, the case requires policy to prevent coercive control upon patients and strict implementation of the zero-tolerance policy of NHS. Under the Health and Social Care Act (2012), the CQC's are responsible for ensuring that quality care is received by people across all healthcare institutions in the UK(CQC, 2019). However, in the case of Whorlton Hall, it is seen that the body has performed the wrong inspection and hence wrong results regarding the quality of care services have come out. Here, the requirement for strict supervision on inspection by CQC is depicted from the outcome. The relation among law, policy, and ethical requirement in the case is established in a way that the ethical practices are not followed in compliance with the law and the subsequent policy. Most importantly, the organisational policy of Whorlton does not comply with the zero-tolerance policy of NHS, which ended in coercive control practices within the hospital. As a result, the hospital failed to be an ethical care and support service entity in London. So, it is found, that law, policy, and ethics are related to each other, if not followed, then it ends up in retarded reputation and practices prevailing within an organisation.
Impact of law and policy on the Whorlton Hall outcome (P8)
According to the Human rights Act (1998), one of the main responsibilities of the care workers to be aware of the abusive practices carried on within an organisation. However, such awareness is not noticed within the care staff of Whorlton Hall (BBC, 2019). However, under the act, certain changes were brought to the system and also in the behaviour of the staff. For example, they started staying away from bullying, neglect, psychological abuse, and other forms of physical abuse. The members of the organisation used to have inappropriate strategies for dealing with the abuse such as talking with the abuser, instead of the victim or not reporting to the management due to confidentiality issues (BBC, 2019). After ten workers from Whorlton Hall got arrested for not abiding with the law, the organisation started taking special care of patients having autism. Due to the arrest, the hospital closed down and the patients are transferred to the other service units.
My feeling and thoughts
I feel that every organisation should take care of basic ethics and be kind to people. Despite being a 17-bed large organisation providing care to disabled people, it shuttered only because of its wrong strategy, supporting abuse. I also came to the conclusion that every organisation or body should do their works properly otherwise it gives rise to serious issues. As seen in the case of the wrong inspection laid by CQC, a totally wrong perception got laid in the minds of people about Whorlton Hall. It is dangerous for people who trust CQC reports, it does not generate the right information. Most importantly, I understood from the situation, it is necessary to be kind and benevolent to people, especially when people are engaged in health and social service, which are the fundamental necessities of people.
Ways in which ethical considerations, policy and law results in different outcomes (M4)
If Whorlton would have followed the NHS health policies and acted accordingly, then it would have not reached into the present situation of shutting down the entire hospital. People were also arrested out of the case. So, above all, non-compliance to the established legislation and policies of health care has led to the degraded reputation of the healthcare unit too. So, if the law and policy would have been followed by Whorlton, then the outcome would be different like increased reputation, awarded and appreciated for benevolent practices and the organisation might have developed certain branches across the nation.
Evaluation
The case let me know the importance of behaving nicely to staff as well as the patients. It developed my thinking of treating people with care and love. The knowledge of ethics and skill to pursue fair behaviour to patients has been acquired from the case. To act differently or in a more improvised way, I need to consider patients as my own family members and treat them accordingly. Disabled patients need support, care, and love from the caretakers and hence if they get abuse instead, it leads to a mental breakdown. Again, such practices are also not fair for the long time functioning of a care organisation as seen in the case of Whorlton. If I were in the case scenario, then I would have reported to the board against the abuse done by care staff towards patients. As a result, of which, the board members would have become aware and would take precautions immediately.
Conclusion
The incident bestowed upon the importance of behaving ethically by treating patients kindly. The hospital destroyed its own reputation as well as chances of future recognition as staff got arrested and the hospital went under a complete shutdown. So, from the case, I learnt to regulate a friendly and transparent environment within my care organisation, such that everybody has the opportunity to report issues they face. I have understood that the most important thing to abide by in a care support service entity is to behave properly. This is because, attitudes and behaviour develop the image of an organisation or an individual before people.