Assignment on Health and Safety in the Health and Social Care Workplace

1. Assess the responsibilities of employers and employee for maintaining health & safety in a workplace (LO1.2)

All workplace parties like- employers, owners, supervisors, workers, self-employers persons, contractors and suppliers are legally responsible for detecting and correcting health and safety risks. According to the OHS Act and Regulations to identify and control health and safety hazards, need everyone in the workplace to work together.

It is a misconception that employers are sole responsible for health and safety of the workplace which is believed by some employee. While employers take all rational safety measures to protect the health and safety of employees, employees also have a vital role for the health and safety in a workplace.

Most control over a work place and its conditions of work are on the hands of employers and they also determine how the work to be done, so they are greatly responsible for the health and safety of employees.  They must:

• Ensure a working place which is safe and healthy;
• Set up Occupational Health Committees or representatives and try to resolve health and safety problems by consulting and cooperating with them;
• Take all possible safety measures to make sure health and safety;
• Clarify the task when an employee faces a hazardous condition or a complex situation or they don’t have proper information about the task’s safety;
• Keep workers form  exposing  to harassment;
• Provide those procedure which are required for safe working environment;
• Obey  the Occupational Health and Safety Act and Regulations;
• To identify, correct and communicate hazards by developing a hazard identification system;
• Provide the proper personal protective equipment (PPE);
• Ensure the supply of proper equipment and their maintenance;
• Ensure the training  of workers;
• Ensure supervisors are expert;
• Cover the entire workplace with inspection process by developing conjunction with the JHSC (an inspection process);
• Take action when a worker or supervisor tells him about a potentially hazardous situation.
• Support the safety committee, safety representative, and workers in their health and safety activities.

Employees play a significant role in making a workplace healthy and safe. They should-

• Be careful of their own health and safety.
• Make acquainted themselves with the legislation of workplace and if they have problem with understanding the legal standards, they must try to understand or have interpretation of the requirements by asking supervisors or management.
• Be familiar with and pursue health and safety requirements those affecting their job.
• Work in safe way, and they should encourage their colleagues to do the same.
• Try to operate machinery without wearing jeweler or loose clothing.
• Be careful about not put other people at risk by course of their work.
• Work together with their employer, safety representative and safety committee to protect their health and safety.
• Take proper training
• Always wear required personal protective equipment.
• Keep distance from interfering or misusing those that's been provided for their health, safety or wellbeing.
• Correct any unsafe conditions or immediately report them to their supervisor
• Talk to their employer when something happens, like becoming pregnant or suffering an injury which may affect their ability to work. Because their employer is legally responsible for their health and safety; while employer try to find a solution to the problem, he may need to suspend them, employees are usually be paid if this happens.
• Avoid fun or taking shortcuts during they carry out their jobs ( for example , to do a pre inspection before using a machinery not taking time)
• Use and check the personal protective equipment (PPE) daily. If those are not provided or they don’t have the right standard, then employees must notify immediately to their supervisor.

    2.  Identify and analyse the health & safety priorities in a residential care home. (LO1.3)

There are differences between other workplaces and Care homes; because they are not only a working place but also a home. Their maintenance should be done is such way that they become pleasant places to live. They must provide safe and healthy environment along with meeting all legal duties. In a residential care home employers are responsible for- protecting their employees’ health and safety; protecting other’s the health and safety like volunteers, service users, agency staff, contractors etc. who may be affected by the way of their works; and making a safety policy statement in the  organisation and performing it. The responsibilities of employee are- taking care of their and their service user’s health and safety; and co-operating with their employer. People, who are not employed in care homes but work activities of people who are employed in care homes, may affect them. That makes them responsible for the health and safety of the care usurers. Here some examples are given by which may affect the people, like: visitors may be slipped because of icy pavements; service users face sweltering risks; service users fall from windows/balconies; not informing contractors about the position of asbestos or a breakable roof; and condition of safe equipment/substances for volunteers to use. According to the legislation, care home need to ensure the independence of people, treating people with proper dignity and respect. A balance has to be made for ensuring not risking the health and safety of the individuals, without restricting their independence. However, under health and safety legislation, the most vulnerable service user they will need to be protected by the care home. Care home need to perform appropriate risk assessments, and ensuring proper placements of service users according to their weakness and wants. It is duty of the employers to the weakness and competence of service users to judge the risk for themselves. Service users should be kept out of risks, if they cannot make a suitable judgment. Recording assessments and then reviewing them periodically is advisable. The service user may be endangered if care home fail to keep such assessments up-to-date and it form a breach of legislation. Employers must ensure that there are procedures in place to manage the risk from manual handling at work. In a resident care home it is desirable to avoid manual handling. Care home should encourage residents to move themselves (where appropriate); they may use handling aids; for reducing the risk the may use mechanical aids. In healthcare generally injuries are caused by slips, trips and falls. Safe entry and exit into the workplace is required in health and safety. Floors should be always in better state and, as much as is rationally workable, not slippery. There need to be good housekeeping practices and that pedestrian and access routes are free of obstructions. Warning signs are important for alerting people that a surface may be wet.

In healthcare the main risk is infection. The infections, poisoning or toxic effects are mainly caused by biological agents including bacteria, virus, fungi (including moulds) and parasites, can cause infections, allergies.  They may be control by limiting the number of employees or visitors to an area where there is a risk of exposure; using hygiene measures which prevent or reduce transfer of the agent: for example, hand washing and maintaining the work environment in a clean and hygienic condition. For reducing the risk of sharp injuries care home need elimination and engineering controls; Safe use and disposal of sharps. For avoiding Legionnaires’ disease temperature of cold water systems need to be kept below 20°C and at 60°C hot water need to be stored and distributed; so at the water outlets within one minute it reaches in 50°C of temperature. Health care wastes are divided in 2 category – 1) Healthcare risk waste, which is potentially infectious and harmful and  2)Healthcare non-risk waste, which nature is domestic. For safe disposal it is essential to isolate these 2 waste types at sources. There are many chemical used in health care which can be hazardous include cleaning agents, disinfectants and sterilising agents, oxygen, latex, mercury, cytotoxic drugs and formaldehyde. The risk of chemical can be controlled by- eliminating the hazardous chemical; or substituting the more hazardous chemical with a less hazardous chemical or a less hazardous form of the chemical, Installing engineering controls, putting administrative controls in place and Using personal protective equipment.  All drugs need to be properly labeled and should be kept in a secure location and only be accessible to authorized personnel. The processes which are mentioned above should be followed for ensuring health and safety in residential care home.

3. Analyse how information from risk assessments informs care planning for individuals and organisational decision making about policies and procedures (LO2.1)

Employers require to assess risks which are related to the health and safety for their employees and others who may be affected by employers’ business. The assessment should be suitable and sufficient, but not need to be perfect.

                    

                                    Figure 1 Model for managing health and safety in work place

Most of time nature of assessments is simple and done by direct examination; such as tripping hazard is happened by obstacles in the corridor, but some assessments are more compounds, like whether service users can leave of the home by themselves.

Identification of the significant hazards is the first step of assessment. This can be done by walking and looking around work place to find risks, asking employees or their representative to get their views and checking accident and weakness records. The second step is deciding who might be injured. This may include - new staff, cleaners, young workers, service users, maintenance staff, visitors, contractors etc. Evaluate risks and making decision about effectiveness of existing precautions; if they are not enough than more should be added; it is the third step of risk assessment. Proper measures should be implemented after identifying the measures in assessments which are helpful for avoiding or controlling the risks. All precautions are not costly and other need slight change in working practice. Then organization needs to confirm that, these new and on hand precautions are effective and making decision of their continuation. Fourth step of risk assessment is recording of the findings. After recording it is important for the organization to tell their staffs about the findings. Final step of risks assessment is reviewing assessment and revising it if necessary. An assessment should be made whenever there is a change in the workplace that could affect health, safety or welfare, or when there is new information about a hazard.

4. Choose and analyse the impact of one aspect of health and safety policy on carers and clients of the residential home (LO2.2)

There are many policies which are created by care home owners for carers and their clients. Generally all policies are made under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 (HSW Act) and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. Now we only explain one policy made against the violence in the care home, and impact of this policy on cares and service users.

A source of injury and distress to staff at work is aggression/violence. Violation  may be defined as: ‘any event in which a care home worker is orally maltreated, threatened or battered by a client or a general public in situation relating to his or her employment’. Sometimes a carer may be bitten by a patient during his normal treatment and the patient has learning disabilities; a carer may be verbally abused and threatened by a service user who is unwilling to take prescribed medication; these are some example of violation in care home. For reducing violence and aggression care home need to make policies which should be fit with the framework of the care home. Aggression or violence is not an inevitable professional hazard, but by establishing proper polices and systems they may prevent or reduce the violence or aggression to carers by the clients or their relatives or friends. Working together is the best way to deal with violence for employers and employees. By risk assessment they need to find out the problems.  They should think about particular actions that can cause violent responses. To find the potential problems it is important to record all type of aggressive and violent incidents some of them may not cause injury but these data are important for identifying the problems. Staffs are encouraged to report these types of incidents plus those that cause injury. In care homes, to prevent and control aggression/violence to staffs there are some safety measures that can be used. To work safely, appropriate training helps the staff when they handle potentially aggressive or violent patient. Employees who make contact with clients, training should be available to all of them. For managing aggression and violence successfully, there need support from people who are at the top of the organisation. It can be done by expressing a plain statement of policy, which has organizational support and by an arrangements it ensure the implementation of that statement. In addition, a flow of information within the organisation about potentially violent situations will help staff to measure the possibility of aggression or violent attack.  From time to time staffs may be needed update training to update their expertise. If carers establish a bond of reliance and understanding with the clients, that will help clients to express their worries and anxieties before they reach a phase where they are out through violent behavior. When an incident happens it is helpful to bring staff together to confer what happened. It may have two roles: to set up details of the incident and to give emotional assist. Staffs morale and confidence need to be improved to control them in violent situation. There should be an authentic promise from employers to pursue trial in cases of serious attack.

5.Discuss how dilemmas faced by the care worker when implementing systems and policies for health, safety and security may be addressed  (LO2.3).

Sometimes care workers face several types of moral dilemmas when they try to ensure health and safety of the service users. As a result of disagreement of company policies and laws with the ethical values of the care workers, sometimes ethical dilemmas happen. Sometimes there is disagreement between care workers and clients or others which may affect the health and social care work plus quality of service of employees. Most common ethical dilemma in care home is the unwillingness of client to take medicine is vital for his current health condition. A Service user may refuse to take medicine because he has right to do his. With power of right a client may stop taking medicine at any time, but it is task of care workers to look after the required treatment of a client for client’s health. It is truly a moral dilemma for care workers because at one end unwillingness of patients to take medicine on the other hand responsibility of care workers for delivering services to the patients to facilitate health and safety. In this kind of situation sometimes a patient may die because of not taking medication and care team may be blamed for this. If care workers force client to take medication, it may considered as abuse, since it will sever the client’s constitutional rights. Sometimes care workers need to clean client’s injuries of open wounds, surgical cuts or ulcers, but rejection of the client to be cleaned creating immense risk; because without cleaning serious infections may be happened by those injuries. Sometimes unwillingness of mobility damaged patients to take assistance from care workers creates serious situation and risk. It depend on client either he will take the help or not. If any client does not take aid from the care worker and falls in an accident, care worker may be accused for not paying attention to his task and responsibilities. It is true that a care worker faces complex ethical dilemmas and diverse issues in health and social care work.

Reference:

1)      http://www.lrws.gov.sk.ca/employers-semployees-responsibility-workplace-health-safety

2)      http://www.wcb.pe.ca/Workplace/RightsAndResponsibilities

3)      http://www.nidirect.gov.uk/employees-health-and-safety-responsibilities

4)      Health and safety orientation guide for employers, Available at: http://www.worksafenb.ca/docs/WorkSafeNBOrientationGuide_e.pdf

5)      Workplace Health and Safety Handbook, Available at: http://www.safework.sa.gov.au/uploaded_files/hsr_handbook.pdf

6)       Health and safety in care homes, available at:  http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/priced/hsg220.pdf

7)      Health and Safety at Work in Residential Care Facilities, Available at: http://www.hsa.ie/eng/Publications_and_Forms/Publications/Healthcare_Sector/Residential_Care_Facilities.pdf

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