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Accompanying Report (1500 words)

Accompanying Report (1500 words)

Introduction:

Health and social care services are required to ensure that representatives of people reach safe, healthy, and dignified lives in different situations. These workers engage in duties within the home performing a variety of tasks including providing personal care such as offering physical and emotional support, thus working with the elderly, those with a disability, and chronic diseases. Health and social care workers respond to hygiene needs, nutrition, and mobility to enhance their clients’ health and offer non-material or emotional and psychological care through caring words.

The purpose of this report is to identify as many varied tasks of health and social care service providers while focusing on their professionalism and staff-user interactions. One can only note that it is significant to distinguish between business and friendship/love, it is crucial because if a worker and a client are involved, then, their feelings interfere, which negatively affects both a worker and a client. It will also analyze the function of supervisory agencies including the Commission for Health Care and Excellence the Care Quality Commission and other agencies such as the NICE which guides standards of care. Further, the imperative of setting practices and procedures which can be policies and standard operating procedures will also be reviewed as the means of achieving uniformity, safety, and quality within the sector.

Roles and Responsibilities in Health and Social Care (AC 1.1):

In health and social care, it is the organizational requirement for all healthcare providers to attend to the psychological, physical as well as social needs of users. This plan encompasses aspects that go beyond the disease and comes with aspects that concern the quality of people’s lives. For example, healthcare assistants help with the activities of personal daily living or the Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) which are activities that enable a person to bathe, dress, and feed himself or herself and which are activities that are important for a person’s pride and freedom. They also perform Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADLs) like, management of finances, telephone use, and medication administration which help the persons to be more self-reliant in societies. Apart from these basic care tasks, many other specific tasks concerning both day-to-day and intermittent as well as ongoing illnesses are also performed by the health care practitioners. They can involve delivering treatments, carrying out assessments, and aiding with recovery therapies involving physiotherapy, occupational, or even speech therapy mainly focused on maximizing the patient’s function and well-being (Department of Health, 2021).

Healthcare also entails implying the dignity, privacy as well as independence of the patients being treated. This entails honoring patients’ self-governance, wherein a patient can decide regarding matters concerning her or his treatment, and recognizing and observing the patient’s privacy and choices. It is best to help the clients in a way that will make them feel that they are in charge of their lives as healthcare providers. However, as it has been previously mentioned, one of the essential tasks of healthcare workers is to protect the susceptible persons. This relates to being conscious of any signs of abuse, neglect, or exploitation and promptly reporting such incidences to the relevant authorities. As we will see continued vigilance and reporting of such abuses is crucial since other vulnerable populations may not be able to report abuse themselves (NHS, 2021). This duty of care means that each patient is protected to the maximum especially those who cannot protect themselves as a result of old age, sickness, or disability.

Differences Between Working and Personal Relationships (AC 1.2):

For this reason, a working relationship in the health and social care sector is business-like and defined by working agreements inclusive of offices, complaints and contracts of employment. These relationships are professional and are characterized by strict adherence to professional regulations and policies, roles, and responsibilities of the staff members in particular. The working relationship aims to ensure that care is delivered without bias and in the shortest time possible without regard to any working relations that one may have with the other. It is the responsibility of each team member based on this role, and the tasks that are assigned for the position within the organization, and these tasks should be accomplished based on the regulatory framework as well as the policies of the organization (NHS, 2020).

On the other hand, business relationships refer to social connections through business affairs and commerce and are mostly formal relationships. Working relationships are confined and different from personal relations that entail affection, trust, and emotional support to name but a few essentials. As much as personal relationships are important in an individual’s life they must not be intermingled with work responsibilities in health and social care settings. Sensitization of the staff is another dangerous characteristic that works towards the detriment of the patients because emotions should be kept at bay since health and social care workers can become emotionally involved with patients and this can affect their ability to reason calmly and objectively. For instance, a caregiver developing a client’s rapport is likely to act in a biased manner adversely affecting the client or even causing harm in the way they manage the health issues of the patients (CQC, 2021).

That is why, healthcare professionals should continue practicing this distinction in order to deliver excellent care; while keeping themselves and their patients safe. When avoiding fraternization with the patients, the caregivers can embrace the patients in a non-judgmental and deeply empathetic manner which is appropriate in the health field to ensure the needed value of trust is upheld. This professional detachment will make sure that the patient gets the best that he or she needs not be influenced by emotions or any biases.

The Role of Regulators and Advisors (AC 1.3):

The Role of Regulators and Advisors (AC 1. 3): Other organizations like the Care Quality Commission (CQC) have the responsibility of checking that health, and social care organizations provide services within specific standards (CQC, 2022). They are the organizations that oversee the operations of care facilities, conduct facility inspections, ensure compliance with the set laws, and act on inadequate and non-compliant facilities. There are other advisory organizations like NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) which give out guidelines that should be utilized by professionals to make sure that excellent health care is delivered. These authorities are important in directing the changes in health and social care service delivery to respond to society’s dynamic needs (NICE, 2021).

Importance of Agreed Ways of Working (AC 2.1):

Such policy-making institutions as those that set service standards, and dispense with recommendations are very useful in the health and social care sector. Among such agencies is the Care Quality Commission (CQC) whose mandate is to ensure that the health and social care organizations provide services as governed by law and agreed standards. The CQC pays surprise visits to care organizations to assess the quality of its service delivery to patients, efficiency, patients’ rights and safety. If a facility has no standard, below are the measures that can be taken by the CQC for instance; The CQC can issue the Centre with a warning and recommend the Centre to seek improvement, the CQC can penalize the Centre, or the last resort the CQC can take is to close down the Centre (CQC, 2022). As a regulatory function, this ensures that the practices of the health care providers are legal and ethical hence safeguarding the health of the patients.

Apart from the regulators, there are advisory bodies that practice advisory services, which are quite helpful to practice holders; one of them is the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). In line with this, NICE as a systematic expert makes generally comprehensive recommendations on different health and social care issues such as chronic illness, and mental health among others. Thus, healthcare professionals can be certain that the specific and most contemporary best practices state evidence-based modes of treatments and care trajectories. This not only helps in the better management of patient outcomes but also helps in the improvement of the quality of the various healthcare services (NICE, 2021).

All these regulators and advisors are vital in handling the health and social care sector to achieve quality services. They ensure that this delivery of services changes with different societal needs and also advances development in the practice of medicine. Hence, other regulators, which are involved in the health care system such as the CQC assist in defining the quality and direction of the care services so that they are patient-centered, safe, and efficient based on recommendations from advisors such as the NICE.

Accessing Agreed Ways of Working (AC 2.2):

Accessing Agreed Ways of Working (AC 2. 2): Once the agreed ways of working are developed, these can be accessed by healthcare professionals through print and other electronic media. These are employee manuals, national guidelines, training sessions, and periodic meetings where existing and new policies are discussed (WHO, 2020). This accessibility guarantees staff, the necessary awareness of the latest procedures and enables them to perform at their best.

Contributing to Quality Assurance Processes (AC 2.3):

Such is the regular checking of the quality, accumulation, and analysis of feedback data, and checking of results obtained from the provision of services. Therefore, these processes are met by the documentation of work by the healthcare workers, the engagement in the feedback systems, and the subsequent improvement of the care practices (NHS, 2021). By these methods, one gets to know areas of recommendation and possible areas for improvement in enhancing patient satisfaction experience.

Conclusion:

Lastly, a health and social care worker has the responsibility to possess a high sense of obligation and ensure that he or she complies with set protocols that are set down in the practice. Thus, they work with their roles and responsibilities in mind, keeping their professional relationship non-emotional and keeping an eye on an agreed way of working so that standards of care are high throughout. This is backed by participation in quality assurance processes which help to identify areas of need for enhancement as well as ensure compliance with standards. Lastly, this broad method guarantees that the received care is efficient and secure and it also addresses patients’ psychological, interactional, and physical requirements.

Task 2: Interview Notes:

Benefits of Working in Partnership with Others (AC 3.1):

Positive effects of integrated working in health and social care Setting up partnerships with healthcare organizations and social services has the following benefits to the working professionals and the recipients of care. The first advantage is that it provides a better chance to improve the results for patients via more effective integration. When they work in tandem, the members of the multidisciplinary healthcare team from health and social care can try to meet the complex needs of a patient. For example, in the case of medical personnel, they take care of the health needs of the client while social care personnel deal with the social needs of the same client and so on. This type of teamwork also results in the optimal utilization of resources that would have otherwise been wasted. This way professionals can work as a unified team and minimize service replication, thus, are beneficial for the overall optimum utilization of time and effort which would ultimately help in catering to the actual needs of the patients (King’s Fund, 2020). Finally, the partnership promotes the value that patient care is everyone’s care hence coming up with a smooth care plan. This approach also improves conflict salvage since many angles are considered and hence leads to better decision-making and therefore improved health care quality.

Examples of Best Practices in Health and Social Care (AC 3.2):

It is possible to classify integration of health care and social care services into Health and social care best practices more especially for occasions that involve complex relationships such as capturing elder patient with multiple conditions. In such circumstances, the health and social care needs of the particular person are to be fulfilled and the necessity of addressing those needs to enhance the quality of this person’s life arises. That way, it realigns the delivery of care as it focuses on the synergy of a team of carers which may comprise doctors, nurses, therapists, and other healthcare professionals with the social care professionals. For instance, there is a patient who requires attention due to their frailty sometimes because of their age, or chronic illnesses and in addition require help with some of the duties of life such as cooking or getting up from a sitting position. In other words, when these two services are cogged the patient in question will be apt to be offered all-round care that will cater to their health as well as the social determinant aspects. The following has been said about this best practice approach: it has the impact of enhancing patients’ satisfaction, reducing admission and achieved optimize of overall result because was encourages a seamless and integrated care (NICE, 2021).

Ways to Improve Partnership Working (AC 3.3):

Enhancement of partnership working implies the need to have communication, collaboration and the definition of responsibilities both in health and social care. Communication is the foundation of any group work; interacting and sharing information with other professionals ensures that everyone concerned gets the necessary information thus improving on delivery of patients’ care. Another way is inter-professional meetings when healthcare and social care workers discuss the needs of the patient, the further management plan, and directions of the work. The other important technique that should be employed in a team is shared care planning which involves writing down the care plan and the roles and responsibilities of all team members. Another thing that has to be very clear is the definitions of responsibility so that everyone knows what to do and so that you do not overlap. Also, ensuring that all employees are involved in decision-making processes due to the belief in everyone’s wisdom results in the best outcomes for both; patients and staff (NHS, 2021). Overall, what a partnership working does is foster cooperation, make it easier for everyone since nobody is in the dark regarding agreements, policies, and procedures, and improve the care that the patients receive.

References:

• Care Quality Commission (2022) Annual Report 2022. Available at: www.cqc.org.uk (Accessed: 09 September 2024).
• Department of Health (2021) Guidelines for Health and Social Care Workers. London: Department of Health.
• King’s Fund (2020) Collaborative Care Models in the NHS. Available at: www.kingsfund.org.uk (Accessed: 09 September 2024).
• NHS (2020) Professional Relationships in Health and Social Care. Available at: www.nhs.uk (Accessed: 09 September 2024).