PSYCH 103 UNIT 5 MEETING INDIVIDUAL CARE AND SUPPORT NEEDS,100% CORRECT

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PSYCH 103 UNIT 5 MEETING INDIVIDUAL CARE AND SUPPORT NEEDS Inton, Maria Sophia Ernestine L3 Health and Social Care Learner ID: 11075795 TASK 1 SECTION A INTRODUCTION There are ... many different ways to support individuals in the health and social care settings and how to meet their needs professionally. Some of the key points to meet this mission is to apply care values, promote equality and diversity in the workplace, follow rules and regulations and to ensure that their own choices and preferences are being adhered when planning for their care and treatment. In this assignment, I will be discussing about what are the possible ways to meet individuals’ needs and how are we (as healthcare professionals) going to ensure that equality and diversity are being applied during the process. To better understand the topics, there are various case scenarios included for each key points. Case Scenario 1 Nusrat Patel is 19 years of age and has learning disabilities and epilepsy. She has recently left her residential school and now lives full time with her mother. Nusrat’s mother has recently given up work to care for her, but is finding this very stressful. Nusrat’s father died when she was five years old. Nusrat now attends the community centre. Staff and volunteers at the community centre are aware of Nusrat’s right to be involved in decisions about her own care. However, as she has learning disabilities, it was decided to also involve Nusrat’s mother, as her main carer. Nusrat sometimes has difficulty in expressing her own needs, wants and wishes and the team has included an advocate who has experience in working with individuals who have learning disabilities. Nusrat has her own personal care plan at the centre, which has been formulated taking a person-centred approach. The plan focuses on Nusrat’s abilities rather than her disabilities and is flexible to incorporate any necessary changes. The plan includes the designation of a named person Nusrat can come to if she has concerns. Nusrat becomes frequently distressed and so the named person has completed a counselling training course, which incorporated positive communication skills, in order to support her. The planning process for Nusrat included graphical facilitation so that a circle of support, which includes Nusrat, her mother and the named person, could be designed. Other individuals may be added as appropriate. Nusrat enjoys dance and drama and has joined activities at the centre. The team who runs the activities has produced Makaton sheets for any scripts or routines to be followed, so that Nusrat can fully participate in activities and productions. Nusrat’s epilepsy is not, currently, well controlled and it has been agreed that a volunteer will accompany Nusrat to the bathroom to enable emergency action if this is needed. The volunteer is aware that she must be discreet in order not to compromise Nusrat’s right to dignity. With the agreement of Nusrat and her mother, the centre manager has arranged a meeting with Nusrat’s G.P. to discuss improved management of Nusrat’s epilepsy. The G.P. has now referred Nusrat to a specialist nurse practitioner, who is an expert in epilepsy. Nusrat has a trusting nature and is likely to attach herself to anyone who appears friendly. This has raised safeguarding concerns and so a list of ‘friends’ using photographs and Makaton symbols has been provided for Nusrat, to support her independence, whilst contributing to her safety. Learning Aim A: Examine principles, values and skills which underpin meeting the care and support needs of individuals. (AP1) Explain the importance of promoting equality and diversity for individuals with different needs. In this world full of inequality and discrimination, individuals still believe that everyone should have access to facilities especially to the support and care they’d be getting from health and social care regardless of their circumstances. It is the responsibility of the healthcare staff to efficiently promote equality and diversity across all areas of their workforce, providing a service that is fair, person-centred and diverse. Equality and Diversity are key components in the delivery of care services. Good practices means encouraging and promoting these components wherever possible. It is also part of the responsibilities of the staff to ensure that through their work, service users receives the fair and equal treatment with dignity and respect. Equality and Diversity should be the centre of service planning. Before anyone, even a professional could be able to promote equality and diversity within a health and social care setting, it is vital to understand what they mean. Within the health and social care terminology, Equality is defined as ensuring that all service users can access the same opportunities regardless of lifestyle, ability, or ethnic background. On the other hand, Diversity is defined as demonstrating respect for an individual’s belief, values, culture and lifestyle and considering differences and own preferences. Staff and members within the care sector are required to have a fine knowledge in promoting these key components. Promoting equality and diversity includes scrutinising care and support plans, identifying a service user’s needs, recognising differences and reducing inequality. To be able to achieve this, service providers should make the Common Core Strategic Principles as the centre of achieving goals within the workforce. These principles has been approved by the Department of Health and Care Quality Commission to be efficient within the sector. Strategic principles involves promoting equality and diversity through mission statements, core values and strategic action plans. Referring to the case scenario of Nusrat Patel, she is said to have a learning disability. A condition which doesn’t deserve to be discriminated but unfortunately, due to the society’s ignorance, circumstances happens. Nusrat can possibly get discriminated by other individuals even at the centre which is why staff should have the adequate knowledge and proper training to be able to promote equality and diversity and prevent discrimination from happening. This can help not only Nusrat but other service users and service providers at the same time. It has been shown that the staff at the centre provided Nusrat the appropriate equipments and facilities. Despite her disability, the staff never hesitated to give her the best care and treatment they could offer. Such as providing her her own GP and nurse to help her manage her condition, including her in activities runned by a team at the centre. The staff has shown equality and diversity through involving different individuals with different needs in one activity. This proves that having a condition and/or disability doesn’t hindrance one person in participating such activities, only if the individuals are given appropriate equipment and treatment so that they won’t feel as if they’re being excluded. If any individual is given the unfair treatment and is not given the chance to speak up for his/her own values and preferences, the individual can feel and/or experience disappointment, anxiety, stress and depression, all of these affects the mental health which can cause the individual to feel not confident and rather choose to be alone as they’d think no one understands them or their condition. Moreover, it is important to promote equality and diversity in any health and social care settings because if there’s harmony and the service users are being valued and encouraged then this makes it easy for the care providers to deliver the care and treatment services professionally and efficiently. This also makes it easy for them to build positive relationships with the service users which leads to effective communication and interaction. (AP2) Explain the skills and personal attributes necessary for professionals who care for individuals with different needs. A skill is the ability to do something well or to be expert in something. On the other hand, a personal attributes is the qualities or characteristics that make an individual who they are, to be specific: their personality. Care professionals are known to be compassionate people who are naturally caring in the nature. When pursuing a profession in healthcare, it is necessary that you have the skills and attributes required. These skills and attributes will help you a lot in dealing with different individuals in different situations. Again, if you are desiring to be a care professional, there are specific skills and personal attributes that you need to consider. These are as follows, One, professionalism. Developing professionalism in health and social care sector involves aspects of behaviour, communication and appearance, situational awareness and judgment of what is appropriate in different contexts. Here are some aspects of professionalism that paramedics and other care professionals in the study identified: Showing clinical judgment and competence; Having a clear separation between work and your private life especially where social media is concerned; Having a positive attitude and willingness to learn and communicate with people; Treating people fairly; Wearing appropriate clothing such as uniform; Communicating in a way that respects others. Second, communication and interpersonal skills. These are among the main tools used by care professionals. Having appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication allows them to find out what problems an individual is experiencing, and allows them to explain the options for care. Interpersonal skills help the care worker tune in to the individual’s feelings. Third, organisational skills. This is the ability to organise oneself by effective time management, and by prioritising tasks. If you’re gonna be the type of care worker who is late for appointments with service users, you won’t inspire confidence. Fourth, if you want to be a care professional then you should be supportive, encouraging, and patient. As part of your job, you will be supporting individuals with different needs on enabling them live their lives from day to day basis. You will need to support and encourage people patiently. Fifth, understanding. Being able to understand the issues facing the clients is essential for being a good care worker. Once you can understand the world from someone’s perspective, you can do what you can to help. By listening and understanding, you can find ways to meet what the client needs. In addition, you’ve got to be sensitive in a proper way. When a care worker or professional is sensitive to the needs of others, it’s much easier to understand what needs to be done. Care workers are often challenged with clients who desperately need to talk about their experiences. Being sensitive allows the care worker the flexibility to listen. This then builds trust. Now, as we look back to Nusrat’s case scenario, the health and social care staff that are providing care for her should have the skills and attributes stated above. Professionalism, in a whole, being professional is really necessary when working in a healthcare this simply means having an appropriate behaviour towards the service user. Staff at the centre who will be dealing with Nusrat should act professional as part of their job. If you are a person who doesn’t have knowledge about individuals with learning disabilities then chance is, you are more likely to cause them harm as you’re just gonna underestimate their abilities, act recklessly and in an appropriate way towards them. That is why, when working in a health and social care sector, you must have this skill. It is also important that Nusrat’s ideas are being adhered, considering that she has learning disabilities and won’t be able to relay messages in a most appropriate way, there should be someone who is willing to listen, understand and patiently communicate with her. Nusrat may receive this support from the designated person assigned to her, as the person is skilled and has incorporated communication skills which is a good thing because Nusrat will be listened to and so she wouldn’t feel lonely and ignored. Another skill that the staff should have is the organisational skills, though this skill is effectively applied in the case scenario of Nusrat through various ways - producing Makaton sheets for her during the activities, providing her with a support worker which can accompany her when going to the bathroom, and arranging appointments for her G.P. to manage her epilepsy. The staff was able to apply organisational skills when planning care and support for Nusrat. This is to ensure that everything is organised for her as she won’t be able to organise it by herself due to her condition and although she has an advocate, they still need support in such things which is why organisational skills is very much important for the health care workers to have. Moving onto attributes, it is also important that the workers who are providing Nusrat the care and support should be patient, encouraging and understanding. Let’s admit it - it is really difficult to be patient when dealing with individuals who has different needs but if you can’t control your agitation then you can’t deal with such individuals. For the service users such as Nusrat to feel more comfortable with her care providers, the care providers must have these positive attributes. This will allow Nusrat to feel more comfortable with her carers and the carers are more likely to know her more and be able to meet her needs efficiently. In conclusion, professionals working in health and social care fields and if you are one of those people who are pursuing a career in healthcare, you must have those skills and attributes stated above. Having the knowledge and being able to apply these when dealing with different individuals with different care needs can have a huge impact when delivering services. Positively, the needs of the individuals are more likely to be met. (AM1) Analyse the impact of preventing discrimination for individuals with different needs. All of us eat, breathe, and drink. We breathe the same air and we all have feelings. We are all humans. That makes me wonder on what makes us different that we discriminate each other? Culture, Beliefs, Appearance, Language and Preferences are some of the reasons for it. Some disability becomes the cause of discrimination. The effects of discrimination on an individual are severe. You may also face discrimination or may get part in it. This time, we will be discussing about the potential effects of discrimination on an individual and how it can impact lives if we prevent it. To have a better understanding of how discrimination affects the lives of the individuals. We must have the knowledge of the types of discrimination. You are gonna learn that in this section. Direct Discrimination: This is the type of discrimination most people will face. If a person is intentionally treated less favourably purely based on the fact that they passes one or more of their protected characteristics, then it is direct discrimination. For an instance, denying a service user treatment because they are ‘too old’; refusing an employee time off work for a religious event; denying a same-sex couple access to healthcare; not hiring a person because of their disability or not suitably accommodating them. Indirect Discrimination: When there is a practice, condition, policy, or rule that applies to everyone but inadvertently puts people with one or more of the protected characteristics at a disadvantage, it is considered indirect discrimination. This will be often unintentional, the employer who made the decision or has plans for a new policy may think that by applying one general rule, everyone is being treated equally. For an instance, having a policy where all female and male patients must be given care by someone of the same gender - some people may prefer certain carers of the opposite gender or transgender people may want to be seen by the gender they identify with. Harassment: This is the type of discrimination that hurts an individual both mentally and physically. You may have to deal with the acts of offense, humiliation, and intimidation. People may do it because of age, gender, race, religion, or some disability. Rude gestures, written or spoken words and images or jokes are the ways people take to harass others. There are two factors that resonates on why discrimination spreads. One is prejudice, some people form opinions about some people or something without even knowing the real story. This can lead to treating other people differently. Second is stereotype, this is the next level of prejudice. When a person is a stereotype, you may have a distorted view about someone or something. This can lead to having strong ideas about things and people and as you age, your hate for particular things, people, culture and beliefs get deeper which results to discrimination. People are everywhere, as well as discrimination but there are specific places on where discrimination occurs the most (e.g. workplace, house and public places). Now, how does discrimination affect an individual? It depends. It can affect an individual emotionally, physically, financially and socially. Physically, when facing discrimination, you could be possibly get hurt, get injuries or things may go worse if the harassment is too much. On the other hand, the emotional and mental impact is even tougher as you may feel anxious, guilty, sad, depressed. You may not anymore enjoy the things you enjoy before, you may lose interest and lose hunger. In addition, it may also affect the education life, you may feel lost and broken. You may lose trust on the people around you or even to those people who are close to you. Perhaps, you may take drugs to run away from what happened when encountering discrimination. Furthermore, you may start avoiding people or may feel hate towards them. This can lead to losing your job and losing interest with your studies. Now, how can we prevent discrimination? Discrimination can affect individuals in so many ways, this can result depression and anxiety, loss of confidence, loss of self-esteem, stress, withdrawal from social engagements, mental illness triggered by stress, injury and death. In a health and social care setting, there are various ways on how we could prevent discrimination from happening and meet individuals’ needs at the same time. Firstly, there should be an access for everyone in terms of equipments. For an instance, disabled individuals or individuals who are more likely less to walk should have an access to a building by providing them with lifts, ramps, wide corridors, wide automatic opening doors, disabled toilets, counters and signs should be in a wheelchair level, hearing loops should be provided as well and there should be no obstacles or clutters to prevent accidents. Secondly, in terms of diet of the service users, there should be a choice of food for service users with medical conditions, religious requirements or cultural preferences. For an instance, if a service user who happens to be a Muslim and is being admitted to the hospital shouldn’t be served with food they cannot eat such as pork and other meat they’re not allowed to eat instead they should be given the freedom to choose what food they want to be served and this is also another way of meeting their needs and preventing discrimination. Thirdly, there should be a use of advocacy services. An advocate is someone, who can speak on behalf of someone else (who maybe can’t speak for themselves due to illness, disability, or lack of confidence). If various ways are successfully adhered and being implemented, discrimination will be prevented and this can have huge positive impacts on the clients/service users, staff and healthcare professionals. This can help people express their needs, it can also empower the individual through giving them autonomy (freedom of choice), the person would feel listened to, secured, and they’d feel that they are in good hands. In addition to this, there will be more effective communication between the service providers and service users if discrimination is prevented. Discrimination can lead to malpractice and abuse, putting individuals at risk of significant harm which is why healthcare professionals need to understand the importance of avoiding or preventing discriminatory language and behaviour in order to employ anti-discriminatory practices. With reference to Nusrat’s case, we can’t deny the fact that she is prone to being discriminated by others, even by those who are at the community centre where people are expected to be respected and given the fair treatment. As a person with disability, Nusrat can possibly be discriminated and considered as ‘less important’ person. This is because others without disabilities will see her as not capable of doing things, which can make Nusrat feel excluded in the society. This can make her feel as if her power/rights is being taken away from her which can affect her decision-making in life. This can then lead to feeling anxious and suicidal. If this happens, there’s a huge possibility that Nusrat will isolate herself from others and can make it difficult for the service providers to deliver services. To be able to overcome this challenge, staff at the community centre should respect Nusrat’s dignity. This can be shown when a volunteer was provided for her, to secure her at any times. At the same time, the volunteer is fully aware that he/she should not discreet in order not to compromise Nusrat’s rights to dignity. In addition, the staff should also record and report issue whenever a risk can possibly harm Nusrat and other service users. Moreover, the staff at the centre included Nusrat and her mother in planning for her care treatment which is one way of preventing discrimination as this recognises her choices and decisions and therefore empowers her. (AM2) Assess different methods professionals might use when building relationships and establishing trust with individuals with different needs. In order to care for and meet the needs of others, you need to develop effective communication and build relationships with them and to be able to achieve that, you need specific skills and personal attributes. We’ve already discussed about what skills and personal attributes mean and how it contributes in delivering services within the health and social care sector. On the other hand, there are sets of basic values that we need to have knowledge about and how it influences working practices and enable relationships to be developed between service providers and users, an example for this are the 6Cs. These are the things that we will be tackling in this section. What are the 6Cs? The 6Cs were developed as a way of articulating the values which need to underpin the culture and practise of organisations delivering care, treatment, and support. It is helpful in health and social care to focus on common values expressed in ways which increase consistency within all aspects of the work, workforce, leadership and organisations. The 6Cs are defined as care, compassion, competence, communication, courage, and commitment. Care is the main key point when working in health and social care, the care that the workers deliver helps the individual person and improves the health of the whole community. Caring defines the service providers and their work. Service users expect the care and treatment they’re receiving to be right for them, consistently, throughout every stage of their life. Care is ensuring that the service user is safe and not harmed in any circumstances. In relation to the case study, Nusrat has learning disabilities and epilepsy. Her epilepsy attacks can be very cautious and unpredictable, which means it can happen anytime and anywhere. She will not be able to handle or carry herself alone whenever this happens and therefore, it is the responsibility of the staff caring for her at the community centre to ensure her safety and ensure that they’re prepared and fully equipped whenever Nusrat’s condition attacks her. That way, the staff are making sure that they are providing the service user the care and support in accordance to the national standards. There are advantages and disadvantages of ‘care’ in delivering services. To start with the advantages, when including care in delivering services towards the service users, this keeps the user away from harm and safe. This makes them feel that they’re in good hands, good team, and good environment. This allows them to be able to feel like they’re worthy and being valued. In addition, this makes the decision-making and treatment plan easier and efficient as care could build a strong relationship between the service provider and service user. The disadvantages on the other hand is that, whilst care can build a strong relationship between the provider and the user, this can lead to attachment. Although attachment isn’t a bad thing as it strengthens the relationship and can make the communication way more effective, this doesn’t apply in all situations. Too much attachment of the user to the provider might lead to the user not wanting any other professional to deliver services for them and too much care of providers to the users might lead not not listening to their own values and preferences as they always want the best for them. In the same scenario, Nusrat is said to have a trusting nature and is likely to attach herself to anyone who appears friendly. The service providers at the centre are fully aware of this and so they ensure that in terms of delivering services for Nusrat, the care should be in a high standard form, but not in a too much way. Ensure that she is being valued, but not in a way that her opinions are not being considered anymore. Compassion, according to the NHS, is how the care is given through relationships based on empathy, respect, and dignity - it can also be described as intelligent kindness, and is central to how people perceive their care. It is basically saying that in delivering care, there should be human contact. When we say human contact, this means allowing yourself to understand the other person’s point of views and not just considering your own. Referring to Nusrat’s case, it is evidently shown that the care providers are being compassionate in terms of dealing with her and giving her treatment services. As she has difficulty in expressing her own needs, as compassionate professionals they decided to involve the mother of Nusrat as her main carer and to involve her in decision-making. The advantage of this is that her mother knows her so well which can contribute massively in terms of treatment planning whenever Nusrat shows difficulty in expressing her thoughts. It has been also ensured that the staff at the centre asked Nusrat the permission to include her mother in such matters. In addition, a volunteer has been agreed to be involved in safeguarding Nusrat especially if her epilepsy tends to attack her. It is also the responsibility of the volunteer to assist Nusrat whenever she needs to go to the bathroom. Although safeguarding Nusrat is the main point, it is also important for the volunteer to know that she is not overstepping Nusrat’s privacy and dignity. As a care professional, it is necessary for you to secure one’s safety and at some point ensure that they are given the privacy, respect and dignity. Competence is the ability to understand an individual’s health and social needs in proficiency, as well as clinical and technical knowledge to deliver effective care and treatments that are based on research and evidence. All healthcare professionals are required to adopt this value as it helps scientific measurements and examinations to be more exact and relevant. One example of competence that is vital in healthcare settings is the ‘cultural competence’. According to a report from Harvard and Cornell researchers, cultural competence is defined as the ability of organisations and service providers to effectively deliver health and social care services that meet the cultural, social and linguistic needs of the service users. Many different individuals can be found receiving care and treatment from healthcare. From age, gender, race and ethnicity even social class, language, and mental and physical abilities. In connection, many barriers occur which hindrances effective communication due to individuals’ differences. However, if competence is applied to the workforce this enables them to create a solution to have a much effective communication between the service provider and service user. Positively, this can lead to unity despite each and every individual’s differences. Communication, according to the NHS, is the central key to successful caring relationships and to effective team work. If talking is vital, so as listening. Both are essential in delivering high quality care and treatment. If there’s lack of communication, challenges could happen such as: lack and misinterpretation of information and unclear orders/instructions which can not only cause harm to the workers but most especially to the patients as they are the main focus on this. Looking on the brighter side, good and effective communication does not only benefit the service providers but the service users at the same time. Having good communication with patients/service users helps them in so many ways. These are as follows: (1) It makes the service users feel calm and at ease: It is normal for the service users to feel anxious when tackling about their health. Especially in times during lab tests are being involved. Due to anxiousness, some service users tend to lose control and becomes aggressive towards the service provider. As a service provider, it is your responsibility to calm them as much as possible to reduce that anxiousness and build confidence. (2) It helps the service users to feel in control: Once an individual enter the healthcare system, they tend to think that their ability to decide for themselves is being taken away from them. But this is not the case. With good communication, service users should feel that despite their condition, they are still in control of what they want to do. For an instance, in Nusrat’s situation, as she has a condition and a learning difficulty, she might think that there is a part of her that can’t function well and that she isn’t supposed to do activities other individuals tell her not to although she has the capability of doing it. To overcome this challenge, staff at the centre must always ensure that Nusrat is being talked and encouraged through saying that she should not let other people’s opinions affect her and just continue to improve her abilities. Through that, Nusrat’s level of confidence can be boosted and will reduce the feeling of anxiety and stress. (3) It makes the service users feel valued: Patience is the key. When we show a person that we are willing to take aside all other things to listen to what they’re saying and understand them, it makes them feel valued. In health and social care, some service users are not confident enough to tackle about their needs. Just as like Nusrat, as she has difficulty in expressing her own needs, though if she’d try to talk to some staff at the centre, the best way that certain staff could do is to try to listen to Nusrat even if she‘d stutter. Good communication makes it easier for the service providers to deliver the best care and treatment that the service users need. Courage enables the service providers to do the right thing in delivering services, this is the ability to speak up when there are concerns and the ability to embrace new ways of working. In health and social care, it is necessary to ensure that the concerns of service users are being adhered and given a solution that is appropriate for both the service provider and user. For an instance, Nusrat’s epilepsy is not, currently, well controlled. To make everything more comfortable and for the quality of care to be more efficient, the manager at the centre came up with a solution which is to arrange a meeting with a local G.P. to discuss Nusrat’s epilepsy management. Although this is not the main responsibility of the management, they took the courage to go beyond their accountability. Commitment, as defined by the NHS, is the ability to take action on challenges that are faced by healthcare workers as part of their job and aside from that, they’re not only doing this just because ‘it’s their job’ but because they are passionate and devoted about what they do. Working in health and social care is not an easy task and requires consistency, therefore, to be able to deliver an exceptional service, workers should be committed on their roles as service providers. To conclude, as a health and social care professional, to be able to treat and care for service users with different needs you must acquire the 6Cs: Care, Compassion, Competence, Communication, Courage, and Commitment. This is to ensure that the service users receives the services in accordance with the national standards. (AD1) Evaluate the success of promoting anti-discriminatory practice for specific individuals with different needs. Mental Health Act 1983 states that in any actions that are taken, it is necessary to ensure that individuals with mental health difficulties or learning difficulties get the care and treatment they need for their own health and safety, or for the protection of other individuals. This promotes anti-discriminatory practice as people may have a stigma on the illness and may have already judged them when they hear they may have a disability. In a nursing home or in any particular health and social care setting, this act shouldn’t be used for the staff member’s advantage. Just as in Nusrat’s situation, she cannot express and deliver her own feelings and thoughts as proper as they should be due to her learning disability, however, this doesn’t mean that the staff members should ignore her disability and just give her the inappropriate treatment. This act covers as said, individuals with mental health difficulties or learning difficulties, including Nusrat which means it is her right to be given the proper care and health service at all cost and to be treated equally just as everyone else. The legislation act Disability Discrimination Act 2005 ensures civil rights for individuals with disabilities and protects them from any form of discrimination. It also encourages organisations and health authorities to overcome barriers and make responsible adjustments to ensure that individuals has full accessibilities. This promotes anti-discriminatory practice as individuals may then become more aware of their specific needs. In relation to Nusrat’s case, members and staff at community centre initiated through providing Nusrat Makaton sheets which enabled her to fully participate in activities and productions ran by centre. This allowed Nusrat to become more aware that she is being treated fairly and also this allowed the other individuals at the centre more aware that diversity and equality were being produced because it clearly showed that the staff members weren’t just concerned and focused about Nusrat’s needs but for everyone elses at the centre as well. In addition to the legislations that protects individuals with disabilities from any danger or harm and any form of discrimination, Human Rights Act 1998 covers all human rights and ensures that all individuals have rights on their side and can take legal action against any person or organisation (which includes health and social care services) that disrespect their human rights. This promotes anti-discriminatory practice as it ensures that everyone should be seen no different and should be treated equally and no one in particular is better or deserves any better than someone else, especially when referring to social class or someone who belongs in a different culture, ethnic, gender etc. Nusrat’s case can be related to this legislation, as someone who has disability, discrimination is not anymore a question. Unfortunately, Nusrat is extremely prone to getting discriminated by other individuals and might be labelled by the society as ‘not normal’ due to her learning disability. Nusrat finds it difficult to express her own feelings and thoughts which obviously means she cannot fight for herself which is why she has an advocate to speak on her behalf and members and staff at the community centre to protect her from any discrimination. For an instance, if any service user at the centre questions the staff why Nusrat’s gets additional needs and has more access to some care, equipments and treatments, the staff and members should then be able to explain to the service users the situation of Nusrat and why she is being given the additional needs. This can help prevent discrimination not just for the staff at the workplace but above all, between Nusrat and other service users. Apart from acts and legislations, there are also specific code of conducts that might be established in a particular health and social care setting. A code of conduct is the written expectations that a specific council (e.g. Nursing and Midwifery Council) has for registered health and social care professionals to follow. These codes guide the professionals on their roles and responsibilities towards the service users. It can also help the service users understand what to expect from the services they receive from the staff and members who provides the care and treatment in a care setting. In connection with the case of Nusrat, it was evidently shown that the healthcare workers were able to follow the code of conduct at the workplace. It is the responsibility of the staff and members at the community centre to provide her the best care and treatment. They were aware of Nusrat’s condition and created a treatment plan for her because she cannot decide for herself as she has troubles in expressing her own needs. To make it easier for the service providers to make decisions they included not only Nusrat but also her mother as the main carer and an advocate to speak on behalf of herself. The plan was formulated to be a person-centred approach which means that the values and preferences of Nusrat are well valued and encouraged. As part of the community centre’s code and conduct, it is important and necessary for the staff and members to take responsibility of Nusrat’s needs and to meet these in professional standards. In the community centre, another rule from their code of conduct is to treat all the service users, staff and members and visitors with respect and courtesy. This simply means that no matter the disability, race, gender an individual might have doesn’t mean they’d get less respect from the people around them. All the laws and legislations that has been said above, if followed professionally, the promotion of anti-discriminatory practices for individuals with specific needs such as Nusrat will be successful. With the proper and adequate care, Nusrat will be more likely to feel comfortable with the service providers which will make the provision of care much easier and therefore can build trust and relationship between the service user and the service provider. Not only that trust and relationships will be built but also Nusrat’s confidence towards herself and her abilities. With the equal treatment given to Nusrat, she will then realise and see herself no different from others and that despite her condition, she is capable of doing the things that others can do that she thought she can’t. Discrimination is difficult to prevent - there’s no lie but if professionals and service users in a certain care setting works together, follows specific acts and legislations and has the goals to achieve something, preventing such unlawful act wouldn’t be as difficult as we thought it could be. In result to successful anti-discriminatory practice, care professionals, staff and members are more likely to deliver the best care and treatment for the service users. TASK 1 SECTION B INTRODUCTION In provision of support for individuals with specific needs, certain ethical theories and principles are being applied to by professionals. In this assignment, I will be identifying what an ethical principle is and as well as discuss how professionals in particular health and social care settings apply these onto delivering care and treatment to the service users. For better understanding, case scenarios are provided for each criteria. Case Scenario 2 Brenda Grey is 58 years of age and lives alone in sheltered accommodation. Brenda has experienced mental ill health for much of her life and needs support from a variety of agencies. Brenda is also a severe asthmatic and often forgets to take her medication due to her mental ill health. Brenda attends a life skills class at the centre. The manager of the sheltered accommodation has met with Brenda’s GP to discuss her concerns. It has been agreed that Brenda would benefit from a care plan that incorporated several professionals, in order to improve her quality of life. The team will comprise the following: ● Brenda ● A health visitor ● A community psychiatric nurse ● A specialist nurse practitioner who is an asthma specialist ● The GP ● The manager of the sheltered accommodation ● An advocate to support Brenda on expressing her own views ● A named person at the community centre who will take responsibility for safeguarding Brenda whilst she is at the centre. The care plan took a person-centred approach and was agreed by Brenda and the team as being able to improve her wellbeing. The advocate spent some time with Brenda at the centre to form a positive working relationship with her, and to take time in listening to Brenda’s views and opinions. Brenda expressed concern that ‘so many’ people were involved and would ‘know her business’. She was assured that any issues would not be discussed without her being informed and that all records would be retained securely. However, the GP explained that, in order for care to be delivered effectively, professionals would need to communicate with each other. For example regarding her medication and any changes in her mental health status, and that the named person at the centre would also need to coordinate with the team and with Brenda. The asthma specialist arranged an initial consultation with Brenda in her home and tested her peak flow, before advising on the use of inhalers. This visit was followed up by the health visitor, who would be subsequently monitoring Brenda’s physical health in conjunction with the asthma specialist and the GP. Brenda had asked for a weekly visit from the asthma specialist, but this was not feasible due to availability and cost of the service. It was agreed that the asthma specialist would visit once a month and more often if Brenda’s condition deteriorated and she required further support. Brenda had requested that the advocate be present at all revisions of the plan and this was agreed. However, her request to have the advocate attend all visits by health professionals was deemed an inappropriate use of resources. Brenda had been abused by a male relative in her youth and was anxious not to have a male community psychiatric nurse to visit in her home. It was explained to Brenda that female nurses were not always available, however the manager at the sheltered accommodation has agreed to be present at all visits. Learning Aim B: Examine the ethical issues involved when providing care and support to meet individual needs. (BP3) Explain how to incorporate ethical principles into the provision of support for individuals with different needs. Whether a care manager or a social care assistant, each and every professional role in a healthcare setting is very much challenging - yet rewarding. In delivering care services, professionals has to consider circumstances, it’s the same for the service users. Tom Beauchamp and James Childress developed the four principles of healthcare ethics in 1985 (Principles of Biomedical Ethics) which provides practitioners the guidelines in decision-making towards facing complicated situations that involves patients. These four principles are namely autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice. Though the definition of each principle are commonly known and used in English vocabulary, it has a special meaning when used in medical settings. All of these are used in provision of care and support and are also utilised for both service user and providers’ safety. If you’re studying health and social care, you might’ve heard the word ‘autonomy’ many times. It is one of the most important things that needs to be considered when planning care and treatment for service users. In medicine, autonomy means to respect and promote an individual’s rights to make their own decisions. Though a healthcare professional can suggest or advise, forcing a service user to make decisions out of their choices is a violation of this principle. The service users must be allowed to make his/her own decisions even though the service providers aren’t much convinced that it’s for the best. Looking at Brenda’s case, when the manager and healthcare professionals decided to make a treatment plan for her, they made sure that it is a person-centred approach which means Brenda’s values, beliefs, and preferences was nurtured, encouraged and listened to. This principle states that service providers must do everything that they can to benefit the service users in each and every situation. This principle is known as beneficence. When delivering services, all procedures and treatments should be done for the most good for the service users. To ensure beneficence, professionals must have the fine knowledge and their skills should be well-developed. We can see that beneficence was utilised in Brenda’s case through allowing her to make decisions regarding her care and treatment plan. Brenda asked for a weekly visit from an asthma specialist, this shows beneficence as she just wanted to make sure that her needs are being met and to ensure that her health condition is being monitored. However, the team wasn’t able to meet Brenda’s request as there’s no available specialist during the desired schedule. As an alternative, the team agreed that the asthma specialist would visit once a month instead and more often if Brenda’s condition deteriorated and she required further support. Evidently, the professionals are ensuring that Brenda’s needs and requests are being adhered as long as it’s for her own good and benefit. Another important principle is called non-maleficence. Non-maleficence means “to do no harm”. This is considered as the care-end goal of the healthcare professionals onto making decisions when delivering services - that they must consider whether other service users could be harmed by the decision that’s about to be made even if it’s for the benefit of the individual. In relation to the case scenario, Brenda is said to have experienced mental ill health for much of her life which gives us a reason on why she tends to forget to take her medications. It is part of the healthcare team’s responsibilities to make sure that Brenda’s health condition won’t worsen. With this situation, the team provided her a G.P., and a nurse to prescribe her the right medications and a named person at the community centre who will take responsibility for safeguarding Brenda whilst she is at the centre. The named person is obliged to take note of Brenda’s schedule of when she should take her medications for instances of forgetting. Also, as she lives alone in a sheltered accommodation, she might feel lonely and risks could possibly happen. Therefore, an advocate was provided to form a positive relationship with her, this will make her feel that she is not alone and that there’s someone who could listen to her views and opinions. The fourth principle is known as ‘justice’. The principle of justice states that fair and equal approach should be applied when providing care and support to individuals. By law, in health and social care, it is important that the professionals consider each and every service user’s needs. Nobody should be treated favourably than the other. By doing this, it justifies the service user’s values and beliefs. In Brenda’s case, the professionals who prepares her treatment plan should ensure that this plan is compatible for her needs and promotes an equal approach. (BM3) Analyse how an ethical approach to providing support would benefit specific individuals with different needs. This time, I shall begin to analyse how an ethical approach to providing support would benefit specific individuals with different needs. When working in a health and social care environment, some professionals are often faced in day to day working of situations which involve moral dilemmas. Which is why it is important for the professionals to have a wide knowledge of ethical approach and what these ethical approaches are and how they are connected to the practice of health and social care. Not only that, but healthcare professionals also need to have a better understanding of their roles as this is part of the foundation of their professional code of practice. There are three vital ethical approaches used in health and social care. These are as follows: Consequentialism, Virtue Ethics and Deontology. Consequentialism is based on two principles: whether an act is right or wrong depends only on the results of that act and/or the more good consequences an act produces, the better or more right that act is. Deontology on the other hand is the opposition of consequentialism as it focuses more on the individual’s actions than on the result. An example of deontology is, when somebody lies, nothing could ever change that they are liars and could continue to lie. It doesn’t really focus on what’s going to be the consequences but rather focuses on the actions taken. Lastly, Virtue Ethics focuses on the moral characters of the professional. This is about asking logical questions that are based on the moral thought on what’s wrong and right. In relation to the case of Brenda, she asked to have a weekly appointment for an asthma specialist. However, the management wasn’t able to make this up for her due to lack of availability. This decision has something to do with consequentialism. If something bad happens to Brenda because the management wasn’t able to find her an asthma specialist that could take care of her whenever she starts feeling unwell and is unable to breathe properly, the management will face extreme consequences. By law, it has been stated that if any health and social care setting can’t provide the adequate needs of a service user, they should find an alternative to be able to make it up for the user. As for Brenda’s, the management should find the solution to this problem through finding an alternative specialist who can check Brenda daily or weekly or as often as Brenda desires so. By doing so, it can minimise the consequences that the service providers could face. It is their responsibility to ensure that the individual’s needs are being heard and achieved no matter how complicated it could get. Main point is that, Brenda should receive the appropriate care so that no consequences will be faced. In addition, we could also apply the deontology ethic on Brenda’s situation. It has been stated that due to her mental illness, she sometimes tend to forget to take her medications for her condition. To provide solution in regard with this matter, healthcare professionals taking care of Brenda should organise a schedule that includes the exact time on when she should take her medications. If Brenda can’t do this by herself, the management should find a way to provide her an assistant who could remind her every time she need to take her medication. Through this, the risk of harm and danger can be minimised. Moreover, virtue ethics can be applied as well for Brenda’s better treatment plan. Brenda will be asked in a moral behaviour of what is right and what is wrong. With this, her opinion will be asked on she wants to be treated and which certain professionals she wants to be involved in her treatment plan. As stated, Brenda was concerned about how there are so many professionals are being involved in making decisions for her treatment plan. She felt that her informations are being shared to many people and that they are invading too much of her privacy. The professionals could come up with a solution by asking her opinions on why she find it wrong. Also, the professionals should make it clear to Brenda that they’re only doing it for her own good but if it still don’t convince her, the professionals should lessen the people involving the plan as respect to Brenda’s decision. In conclusion. The care providers are required to always put in mind that the service user’s opinions should be considered and respected. TASK 1 SECTION C INTRODUCTION In addition to provision of care and support to individuals, health and social care professionals must investigate the principles behind enabling individuals with care and support needs to overcome challenges. In this assignment, challenges faced by individuals with different care and support needs will be tackled as well as what strategies and techniques must be used to overcome certain challenges. On the other hand, personalisation will be defined and how it improves the quality of care. Case Scenario 3 Maria Montanelli is 34 years of age and lives with her 96-year-old mother who has dementia. Maria’s mother is a first generation immigrant from Italy but, due to her condition, does not remember any English and speaks only in Italian. Maria is a primary school teacher and is finding caring for her mother is affecting her ability to perform her teaching duties, due to lack of sleep, as her mother needs to use the toilet several times during the night. Maria has asked her doctor for sleeping tablets and has found that she is becoming dependent on them. Maria attends a flower arranging class at the centre, whilst her mother visits the chiropodist on Saturday mornings. Maria’s G.P. has been reviewing her records and has realised that she has been taking the tablets for over a year with no improvement. He has contacted her to suggest that she should attend the surgery for a consultation. At the visit, Maria’s G.P. suggests a referral to a counsellor to explore alternative methods of falling asleep without the need for medication. The G.P. also suggests a referral to social services, with a review to Maria’s mother being placed in a nursing home that can provide specialist dementia care. Maria has expressed reluctance to place her mother in care but has agreed to an assessment of both her mother’s and her own needs by a social worker, as the situation at home is becoming intolerable. In order for Maria’s mother to be included in all areas of the arrangements, a volunteer interpreter will be attending all sessions where decisions are made. However, bilingual community care assistants and night sitters were not available, due to lack of funding, and this can affect cooperation between Mrs. Montanelli and her support workers. The social worker has arranged for Maria to have support from a community care assistant, who will help her mother with dressing and personal care during the day, and a night sitter once a week, to allow Maria an undisturbed night. Maria had asked for the night sitter to attend more often but was told that resources were not available for this. Maria is also concerned about her post as a primary school teacher, as the head teacher has suggested that her mother’s condition is affecting her performance in class. Maria has consulted her trade union representative who has arranged a meeting between the head teacher and Maria, at which the representative will be present. It has now been agreed that Maria should be permitted some compassionate leave until the support from social services has been fully implemented. The head teacher has agreed with the trade union representative that Maria will not be discriminated against when she returns to work and will be able to take up her post with slightly reduced hours. Learning Aim C: Investigate the principles behind enabling individuals with care and support needs to overcome challenges. (CP4) Explain the strategies and communication techniques used with individual’s different needs to overcome different challenges. We could present variety of barriers to effective interaction and communication. Most of these barriers are common to health and social care settings. However, these barriers can be overcome with the use of strategies and techniques. In this assignment, I am going to explain number of strategies that professionals use that aims at improving the quality of communication in health and social care settings. Staff training and assessment of needs: Communicating is a skill that requires practice. Organisations and healthcare professionals provide staff training which offers opportunities to develop the skills needed in order to communicate effectively with service users. These training sessions offer mission and vision to focus on ways of overcoming possible barriers to effective communication. Aside from developing certain skills, service providers are also required to be able to adequately identify the service user’s needs. In some cases, service users can’t easily tell which method of communication they prefer to use. With that, service users are referred to specialists. Promoting rights and confidentiality: Health is vital to an individual’s life. Individuals has to feel comfortable and confident when it comes to tackling matters in regard with their health. Each and every individual who uses healthcare services has rights aside from human rights. These rights were established by the legislation, code of conduct and national standard. These includes the following: the right to be protected from harm and danger, the right to be respected, the right to be given the privacy, the right to be treated with equality and dignity, the right to be able to communicate using the service user’s preferred method of communication and the right to care whilst considering the service user’s own needs and preferences. Health professionals should aim to promote these rights when delivering care and treatment to the service users. Moreover, it is necessary for the service users to know and understand that any information they share will be with strict confidentiality. Organisations and healthcare professionals are strictly required to keep an individual’s personal data confidential, means it should not be shared with any other individuals unless stated. Diminishing abusive behaviours and building positive relationships involving appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication: We can’t deny the fact that working in health and social care can cause too much stress to the workers and therefore, to be able handle this and deal with the service users appropriately, a lot of patience is needed. Abuse or aggression could sometimes be the result of stress and frustration; which adds up to barriers to effective communication. To overcome this challenge, workers should use device strategies which includes the following: staying calm during serious situations and circumstances, establishing trust by making the other individual feel valued. Through the use of proper verbal and non-verbal communication skills, professionals cana lso overcome challenges in relation to depression, anxiety and other emotional and psychological issues. By showing interest through facial expressions, body language and appropriate eye contact, could create the perfect balance of professional and positive relationship needed in healthcare environment. Appropriate environment, personality and confidence: Having the appropriate environment in health and social care settings will absolutely help in promoting effective communication. Not only that but it could help improve the quality of treatment and care being received by the service users. Such as: reducing the noise levels, organising facilities, improving customer services and allowing individuals with special needs to have an area where they could move comfortably. In addition, it is necessary for the healthcare professionals to adopt the appropriate personality/attitude when dealing with individuals with different needs. In delivering services, the service user’s comfortability is the main priority. As a professional, it is your responsibility to ensure that the service user feels valued and encouraged in your care and that they should not feel fear and frustration as this could have a negative impact on their emotional well-being. To be able to convince the service user and build a positive connection with them, appropriate non-verbal communication should be used such as: smiling, friendly and calm body language. With reference to Maria’s case, health and social care workers should use different strategies to help Maria overcome challenges. They could help Maria through providing her resources focuses on her mother’s health such as books, magazines, leaflets and other references that could give her informations on how to deal with different challenges that her mother’s facing or might face. Counselling is another example that the care workers can provide. Counsellors can help Maria by giving her professional advices on what appropriate actions should be taken when caring for her mother. Through this, Maria will receive guidance and feel more relieved as there’s someone she can trust and talk to about such matters. Also, with some guidance, Maria will be able to slowly go back to her teaching duties. (CP5) Explain the benefits of promoting personalisation when overcoming challenges faced by individuals with different needs. When overcoming challenges faced by individuals with different needs, it is important that their opinions are being adhered. It is important that when providing care and planning treatment for them, their beliefs and preferences are considered. In what way the professionals could be able to achieve this? Through personalisation. To allow us further understand the discussion, we must first know how health and social care define personalisation. Personalisation means that anyone who receives care or support will have the choice and control over the care or support they receive. This was introduced in the Care Act 2014. Personalisation can come from private funds, sometimes, individuals may be given the budget as a direct payment to use for their care and can employ a personal assistant to help them. Personalisation can benefit individuals as it allows them to have a choice and control over the care or support they receive. The individual can also choose which care provider they would like to receive care from and if they’re not happy with the delivering of service, they can change the care provider. This also allows the individual to have a choice on which specific staff they have caring for them and what times and how they use their hours. This helps the individual build their independence and confidence which is considered a benefit from having personalisation. Just like any other, personalisation has its advantages and disadvantages as well. It can promote dignity among groups of service users, such as the older people. Whilst direct payments allows them to have access on social networks and can support their independence as well as it allows them to employ carers they feel comfortable with and who can meet their needs and choices. However, it could also present circumstances. Some advantages of using personalisation concept are the service user’s outcomes can be improved and at the same time, costs can be reduced as people who control their budgets are able to find solutions for meeting their needs and can further reduce their need for paid support. Also, in personalisation, the service users are empowered to make the better, right decisions and allow opportunities and respond more quickly to the challenges they’re facing. Other than offering improved quality of care and empowering the service users, studies have shown that personalisation has consistently cost effective of the public finance as found by Glasby and Littlechild (2002) that direct payments support are on average 30-40% cheaper than the equivalent directly provided services. Moreover, it was concluded that service providers feel the connection between them and the service users and that this has improved the quality of care provided. Zarb and Nadash (1994) also suggested that through the personalisation concept, the flexibility of the service user is enhanced. The service delivered if suited depending on service user’s needs rather than suited depending on the carer’s timetable. Apart from the advantages discussed earlier, personalisation has its limitations and disadvantages. To some individuals, such as those who are elderly and mentally incapable, they find personalisation inappropriate because they think that they are the ones who are supposed to manage their own financial arrangements directly. However, if they think, this will only add extra burden and unwanted stress for them. Also, most service users are also anxious with having to deal with responsibility particularly when they are unwell. Especially with regards to assistance with the direct payments. They find this a problem as they think it could be a money fraud (Leece and Bornat 2006). Another limitation of this concept is the care assessments that are carried out sometimes underestimates the needs of the service user, especially those with mental illness as their needs are subjective (for an instance, cannot be recognised easily especially when it’s not quite a good day for them) and therefore failed to be met. In result, the assessments are often not person-centred as it lacks their involvement in decision-making which leads to the service user’s disempowerment. Now that we have discussed the advantages of disadvantages, we have to reflect to our case study and how personalisation can help an individual overcome challenges. Personalisation is important to service providers as this helps them onto creating a better treatment plan that is suitable to the service users’ needs. With regard to Maria’s situation, as she is concerned with not being able to communicate properly with her mother due to her mental health condition, the professionals could use personalisation to include Maria and her mother’s choices and preferences when deciding for a treatment plan for her mother. In this way, Maria will be more relieved as she knows that in preparation for her mother’s treatment, her own perspective is recognised. In addition, to further improve the communication, Maria and her mother will get the opportunity to decide which strategy and communication techniques to use when communicating with each other. Moreover, Maria will feel less frustrated as she can now lean on to health and social care professionals when she has concerns in relation to her and her mother’s condition. This can result to positive relationship which, if we connect, can lead to improved quality of care. On top of everything, ensuring that professionals make way for the service user’s own choices and preferences will benefit both the service user and provider. With considering their preferences, the service users will feel that they are being valued, supported and encouraged. By doing this, they are more likely to put trust on professionals in regard with provision of care and support. For professionals, the concept of personalisation is beneficial for them as it keeps them on track and gives them further informations on where to improve and which services they should develop. (CM4) Assess the strategies and communication techniques used to overcome different challenges faced by individuals with different care and support needs. As discussed, the use of strategies and communication techniques used to overcome different challenges in health and social care setting is extremely necessary. Without these, discordant sharing of informations might occur which is clearly not helpful when the set goal of professionals is to achieve a high quality of care. The use of these strategies and techniques requires deep knowledge and serious training as it involves a lot of patience and compassion. It is important to understand what a care professional could do to be able to handle the service users properly and in their convenience. If you don’t know the method of communication they prefer, then how will you be able to help them? Or even understand them? If good communication is being applied, it doesn’t only benefit the service user but the care worker as well. Strategies and communication techniques are ways to deliver effective communication to the service users for them to be able to understand informations. A strategy is something that helps an individual to work towards achieving something. The main key point of using strategies and communication techniques is to share knowledge and raise awareness. Sharing knowledge to the service users to ensure that they understand the informations being delivered to them with regard to their health and raising awareness to ensure that they are aware of the policies and procedures and the consequences they might face when these are not followed. It is important for the service providers to be aware with all of these to be able to deliver the best treatment to the service users. Aside from that, the reason why it is important for the service user to know the informations shared is that they get to be involved in decision-making. This allows the user to stand up for his/her own beliefs, values, and preferences. If there’s no proper communication between the service user and the provider, there’s a 90% that the treatment plan might not be as effective as it should be. Promoting effective communication is one of the key principles in social work and should always be considered in provision of care and support. There are two methods of communication: verbal and non-verbal communication. Verbal Communication technique is based on face to face communication. This method requires talking to individuals with the use of words. It involves the understanding of spoken words and understanding the use of sounds. Body Language is also another example of communication technique. This is based on an individual’s actions and emotions. Such as, if a person is happy, we can see it based on their actions because they’re filled with smiles and energy. Meanwhile, if a person is sad, we can easily notice it because their voice is usually low, face is frowning and is facing on a downward direction. Non-verbal Communication is when there is more use actions than writing or talking. For individuals with difficulty of speaking, this technique might be more suitable for them to use. In addition, individuals with special needs can use this communication through the use of the following resources: braille, makaton, sign language, etc. These various strategies and communication techniques can contribute massively in overcoming challenges that hindrances the professionals to provide a better care and treatment services. The strategies and techniques mentioned above should be available in any health and social care settings to allow opportunities for those individuals with special needs. With regard to Maria’s case, she mentioned that her main concern is her mother’s lack of capability from speaking English. Due to her mother’s dementia, she forget how to speak fluent English and can only remember Italian language which makes it difficult for Maria to communicate well with her. In result, she is not able to suffice her mother’s needs. This has raised concern to the health and social care professionals. To overcome this challenge, the professionals with adequate knowledge and training suggested communication techniques that Maria could use when communicating with her mother. Such as, body language and gestures. Maria has been advised that aside from speaking, she could try to deliver messages through the use of her actions, facial expressions and gestures. These can guide her mother to understand what she is trying to say especially when the gestures are clearly demonstrated. Another challenge that Maria has to overcome is her lack of ability to perform daily tasks and her lack of ability to pay attention to her job position as a teacher. Because of stress and frustration, Maria can’t balance her teaching duties and her responsibility as a carer to her mother. To help Maria overcome this challenge, health and social care professionals can suggest to put her mother on a community centre whilst she is working so that her mother can be looked after and can be taken care of. Another option is to provide Maria a mental health therapist who could help her get back on track and so she can slowly go back to functioning well. In conclusion, the use of specific strategies and communication techniques can further help overcome every individual’s challenges. These are beneficial not only for the service users but for the service providers as well as this improves the quality of care in health and social care settings. (B/CD2) Justify the strategies and techniques used to overcome ethical issues and challenges experienced by individuals with different needs when planning and providing care. In this section, I am going to justify the use of strategies and techniques used to overcome ethical issues and challenges experience by individuals with different needs when planning and providing care. It is necessary to know that when applying these strategies and techniques, you have the fine knowledge about what you’re doing. As a health and social care worker, you should be able to explain to the service users that these techniques can help improve the quality of care they’re receiving. In addition, through the use of effective strategies and techniques, it can provide the service users informations that are vital to their health. In health and social care, it is common for a service user to be unaware of their actions. Some of them, tends to forget to analyse what is the difference between right and wrong. As the service provider, it is part of your duties and responsibilities to guide them and be part of their decision-making. For an instance, a service user at the community centre that you’re working for is facing a certain challenge and is having a difficulty from expressing her needs. With your fine knowledge and capability, you should be able to help that service user overcome those challenges. May it be through communicating with them using their preferred communication method. Not only that but, you also need the courage, compassion, and patience to efficiently provide their needs. The knowledge and ability can’ be acquired just by a snap - healthcare professionals go through training sessions in where they face real service users with real-life situations. Through these trainings, professionals can gain knowledge, enhance skills and learn how to deal with ethical issues competently. Moreover, if the healthcare professionals are able to overcome these ethical issues, the provision of care and support in health and social care settings will be more effective. We have discussed how important effective communication is. Effective communication leads to effective provision of support and care. But how does effective communication affect the provision of treatment for individuals with different needs? Verbal communication allows the service users and the service providers to discuss about matters face to face. With the use of spoken words, service users are able to understand and clearly receive informations in relation to care planning. With verbal communication, both parties could share informations personally and clearly. On the other hand, non-verbal communication is mainly based on body language and facial expressions. Just like verbal, this method is also necessary when communicating with the service users. With the use of this, they will be able to recognise feelings and emotions. Therefore, it is easy for the providers to comprehend what the users are trying to imply. For individuals with speaking difficulties, non-verbal communication is much more considered as they could focus more on actions than words. Each communication technique is vital. However, to promote a more effective and anti-discriminatory practice, both verbal and non-verbal communication should be used as this gives opportunities to those individuals who has special needs. Some individuals may need to be acquired with special resources such as: translator, braille, makaton, etc. to be able to communicate. Therefore, service providers should try their best to provide the service users their needs. When all is said and done, communication techniques are beneficial for both user and provider as this allows greater understanding to the service user’s own preferences which helps them overcome the challenges they’re facing. Reflecting back to the case of Brenda, in order for her to be aware of her decisions, the healthcare professionals should ensure that strategies and communication techniques are used to help her overcome her challenges. For an instance, Brenda should be provided with informations regarding her health condition, progress and treatment. She should be involved in decision-making and treatment planning. Before anything else, service providers should ensure that Brenda understands procedures and policies on a way that she could before jumping onto conclusions. On the other hand, Maria, a teacher who is concerned about her mother’s health has no knowledge on how she could help her mother. Because of stress and frustration, she’s unable to focus on her job and is affecting her teacher duties. Health and social care can help Maria overcome the issues she’s facing through providing her resources that can help her gain knowledge about her mother’s condition such as medical books, leaflets, and magazines. In that way, Maria will have the ability to decide what actions to take when dealing with her mother. To further help her, they could teach Maria strategies and communication techniques that she could use whilst communicating with her mother. It is important to raise awareness on how to overcome challenges that these individuals are facing. If Brenda don’t know the informations being used for her treatment planning due to failure of communication, bottomline will be she will have no idea whether the procedures are right or wrong. Also, if Maria don’t have nobody she could go to to discuss her concerns, therefore she might be having difficulty on dealing with her mother and her mother’s condition could go worse if not taken action immediately. To conclude, strategies and techniques plays a vital role in provision of care and support in health and social care settings. Health and social care professionals should apply these especially when dealing with individuals who has special needs in overcoming challenges. Decision-making might be difficult to individuals with special needs but with the help of professionals, it is easy for the service users to recognise what is right and what is wrong for them. TASK 2 INTRODUCTION To be able to deliver care and treatment professionally and efficiently, certain groups and agencies work together as one to enable high quality of care. They don’t simply share knowledge and work together whenever they want to but there are specific policies and procedures they need to carry out before delivering services. In this assignment, I will be explaining what different professionals are involved in multi-disciplinary team and what their responsibilities are. I will also be tackling about how professionals should store and manage informations in regard to the service user’s personal preferences and health condition. Learning aim D: Investigate the roles of professionals and how they work together to provide the care and support necessary to meet individual needs. (DP6) Explain why meeting the needs of the individuals requires the involvement of different agencies. To effectively deliver care and treatment services, health and social care professionals doesn’t only work as a team. They also work with agencies which provides them equipments, facilities, and further support to ensure that any individual who receives care from them is contented and satisfied. Multi-agency is all about working together to provide a masterly response to individuals with different needs. Different agencies are required to involve in delivering services to individuals as this offers wide range of opportunities and support in a timely manner. Working as a group also increases the availability of facilities in a health and social care setting. As a health and social care professional, you will need to be clear about your role, duties, and responsibilities and also understand the structures and governance of colleagues from other sectors. Each and every professional on each agency is required to have proper training and fine knowledge about working together as a team. One of the benefits of working in different agencies is that experiences are shared with each other. What I mean with sharing experiences is that each and every professional in a health and social sector will be able to share his/her own experiences with other professionals in terms of dealing with individuals with different needs. With teamwork and coordination, professionals will be able to deliver the best care and support for individuals. This is extremely beneficial not only for the professionals but for the service users as well, knowing that different professionals are working together to provide them treatment, it gives them the idea that they are in good hands and the support they’re going to receive is from the best. It also makes them feel less worried because they know that there will be no harm or danger. In addition, when different professionals work together, each of them gain knowledge from each other which provides them wide range of capabilities. Not only that, but when working with multi-agencies, connections and relationships are being built. When positive relationships are being built, this enhances and makes it easier for the service providers to work together as a team. However, there are issues that can arise when different professionals and care worker work as multi-professional team. What are the advantages and disadvantages of working together as a team? A great advantage of multi-professional working is that many opportunities and informations can be shared. This includes the evaluation of care, decision-making, and care planning. Diversity is also involved which means that the values, preferences and own beliefs of each and every professional is considered and supported. Furthermore, effective communication can mean that a seamless service and enhanced coordination of care can be provided. As well as offering multitude of benefits, closer communication might also bring conflicts, sometimes mistrust between professionals occur and conflicts in role expectations as well. Other issues include: lack of capability to maintain adequate and effective communication, the risk to the service user’s confidentiality because as we can think of multi-agency working, there are much more people who will be involved in a service user’s treatment plan, and there is a potential of anxious patients as they need to meet more professionals. Let’s clear this out, to further provide a better care and support to individuals, we must focus on positive impacts. Studies have concluded that there are much more benefits of multi-agency working than the disadvantages. With the involvement of different agencies and different professionals, holistic approach is applied and increase in understanding and trust between agencies were cited. And improved/more effective services are identified. (DP7) Explain the roles and responsibilities of different members of the multidisciplinary team in meeting the needs of specific individuals. A multi-disciplinary team is consisted of different members in a health and social care sector. These members work together as a team to provide the best care and support for individuals and to meet their needs. They all need to have good communication skills and able to get on with individuals from different backgrounds. They also have to have a Disclosure Barring Service (DBS) check to ensure that they are suitable to work with vulnerable people. In this section, I am going to tackle about the roles and responsibilities of each and every professional in a multi-disciplinary team. Here are just a few of the roles and what is involved with each: Doctors/GP, Nurses, Midwives, Healthcare Assistants, Social Workers, Occupational Therapists, Psychologists, Youth Workers, Care Managers, Care Assistants, and Support Workers. Doctors/GP examine, diagnose and treat individuals who are sick. Specifically, doctors work in hospitals and clinics. On the other hand, General practitioners (GP) are doctors who see individuals in their practice and they may refer patients to hospital doctors for further examinations and special treatments. Nurses carry out many of the treatments prescribed by doctors and just like doctors, they advise and help individuals about their health. They further explain to individuals their health condition and help them go back to their healthy living. Midwives are the ones who care for pregnant women and their babies during pregnancy, during the birth and for up to 28 days after delivery. Healthcare Assistants help nurses carry out the care for individuals who are sick and they also help to advise individuals to stay healthy. Social Workers are employed by local social services and by some voluntary organisations to help individuals who need support in their lives. Social workers usually work with families, with children, with individuals with mental health issues, with those with learning disabilities and with adults who need additional support. Occupational Therapists help individuals with mental, physical or social disabilities to carry out everyday tasks for themselves. They work with individuals of all ages who may need support due of accident, illness, or lifestyle. Some children may need this support because of condition they were born with. Psychologists plays a huge role in health and social care sector as they are professionals who have the adequate knowledge and training in relation to mental health issues. They provide service users special therapies in order to recover from their illness. By these special therapies, wide range of informations are being gained, psychologists study about the brain and behaviour of an individual. Youth Workers help young individuals develop and achieve in personal, social, and educational areas and usually work in nurseries and schools. Care Managers are the ones who organise care and ensure it meets the national standards. They may manage a care home, community centre, or a care agency where staff care for individuals in their own homes. Care managers are responsible for staff, for safety, for quality of care and for running a business focusing in health and social care. Care Assistants on the other hand, give care often in an individual’s own home. Some of them may work alone and visit several individuals to help with with their daily activities. Last but more importantly, Support Worker, they work with individuals and families to help them have a better life. There are various types of social workers who work with different groups such as: Family support workers work with families; Mental health support workers work with individuals with long term mental health issues and help them live in a community rather than in hospital. Support workers may work with social workers or community nurses to support individuals with different needs. Apart from their main responsibility which is to care and treat individuals, there are far important responsibilities these health and social care professionals has to manage. It is important for us to understand the day to day responsibilities of professionals who work in health and social care settings. Moreover, professionals mentioned above are accountable (responsible for your actions) for what they do. In order to help them in their everyday work there are written guidelines (policies) and rules (procedures) for how to manage things. These policies may state how to manage and store information about individuals who use the health and social care services (Data Protection Policy) or they may state how to treat individuals with dignity and respect as individuals (Equality and Diversity Policy). Health and social care workers should work according to these policies. As discussed, GP and doctors who work in hospitals and clinics are responsible for treating individuals with illness. Usually, doctors in surgery are the ones who perform and carry out treatment. Nurses have a special ability to promote healing where there has been physical injuries or when someone has had an operation, therefore, nurses may change wound dressings, give (not prescribe, as only doctors can do this) medicines, and ensure that a patient has enough fluids in the body. Healthcare assistants help service users to recover through assisting them to move around and be independent in their everyday tasks. Just like nurses, healthcare assistants also help individuals who are recovering from mental illness. This type of support may be given in hospitals/clinics. Oftentimes, this support is given in a community centre where the support is more accommodating for individuals. Majority of health and social care service is now focused on encouraging individuals to remain independent despite their conditions and is focused on rehabilitation in where individuals will be able to regain their strength and independence as soon as possible after illness. For an instance, Occupational therapists (OT’s) may assist those individuals who might be at risk such as an older person who lives alone and is going to have an operation in a hospital. However, this older person cannot walk himself without guidance. Therefore, the occupational therapist will find a way for the person to be able to walk by providing equipments such as walking frame, or home adaptations such as grab handles. The social worker in-charge may talk to a care manager of a local care agency to organise a care and treatment plan for the person at home, sending a care support worker for a few days after discharge to ensure that the person gets help with daily tasks such as washing, dressing, getting food, and going to the bathroom. Oftentimes, individuals have long-term care needs, perhaps due to a condition such as learning disability, mental health problems or long-term illness that hindrances them to fully live an independent life. With such circumstances, a social worker can help assess the individual’s needs and if they are obligated to care, will help them plan what support they need and work out how they pay for it. The support worker must create a plan that is person-centred which means the values, beliefs, and preferences of the individual he/she’s caring for should be encouraged and considered. Furthermore, each and every professional working as a group must apply care values and principles. As a health and social care professional, it is your responsibility to promote anti-discriminatory practice, to empower individuals, to ensure safety, to promote effective communication and ensure confidentiality and to be accountable to their professional bodies. By being aware of your role and knowing how to apply these care values and principles, the care and treatment delivered to service users are ensured to be safe and efficient. (DP8) Explain the arrangements for managing information between professionals. Whether it is a health and social care sector or not, it is necessary to store and manage informations between the worker and client. In health and social care, managing informations help the care providers to ensure that confidentiality is being kept and that the service user’s shared informations are safe and not being spread to anyone. One of the best ways to manage information is to keep confidentiality at all times. Confidentiality means not telling anyone, other than those who should or need to know, what an individual has said to the care worker or the problem that they have. The Data Protection Act 1998 states how information about individuals must be stored and managed. The principles of this act states that everyone using data must ensure that the information is used fairly and lawfully, which means that whatever informations shared must be permitted by the individual, ensure that the information is used for limited, specifically stated purposes, used in a way that is adequate, relevant and not excessive, accurate, kept for no longer than is absolutely necessary, handled according to individual’s data protection rights, kept safe and secure, not transferred outside the European Economic Area without adequate protection. Informations in relation to ethnic background, political opinions, religious beliefs, health, sexual health, and criminal records are much more strict and must be extremely secured. Health and social care practices should maintain confidentiality that includes raising awareness to healthcare professionals and informing them relevant laws, keeping informations safe and secure, sharing informations only to authorised people (for an instance, professionals who are involved in a multi-disciplinary team including their families). Storing informations offers a lot of benefits such as professionals will be able to update service user’s informations which will later then help them to carry out day to day work. In health and social care sector, professionals should ensure that confidential documents are locked on a specific cabinet with password only authorised workers know. This also benefits the service user as it keeps their personal life private and it protects their dignity. There are certain codes of practice for service providers in establishing confidentiality. This codes of practice provide the health and social care professionals the ability to state and inform others what’s important to share and not to share. This also gives them the ability to keep informations secure. Skills for Care and Skills for health publish a ‘Code of Conduct for Healthcare Support Workers’ which states that as a health and social care worker, you must: treat all informations about individuals who use healthcare services and their carers as confidential, only discuss or disclose information about individuals who use healthcare services and their carers in accordance with legislation and agreed ways of working, always seek guidance from a senior member of staff regarding any information or issues that you are concerned about, always discuss issues or disclosure with a senior member or staff. Just like support workers, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has published ‘Code for Nurses and Midwives’ as their code of practice when handling informations. It states that: ‘As a nurse or midwife, you owe a duty of confidentiality to all those who are receiving care. This includes making sure that they are informed about their care and that information about them is share appropriately.’ In order to achieve this, you must be able to respect an individual’s right to privacy in all aspect of their care, make sure that individuals are informed about how and why information is used and shared by those who will be providing care, respect that an individual’s right to privacy and confidentiality continues even after they have died, share necessary information with other healthcare professionals and agencies only when the interests of service user safety and public protection override the need for confidentiality, and share with people, their families and their carers, as far as the law allows, the information they want or need to know about their health, care and ongoing treatment sensitively and in a way they can understand. As technology kicks in, professionals have come to an innovation where personal files and documents can be stored electronically. This is helpful as it lessens the use of paper based documents. However, it can somehow breach confidentiality. Electronic files requires passwords, nowadays, internet hackers are very relevant. If the password will be hacked, therefore it allows them to have an access to informations which they shouldn’t have access in the first place. In result, this can destroy the storing and managing of confidential informations. To resolve this issue, healthcare professionals using technology to store files must ensure that all unwanted and unauthorised accounts, websites must be blocked so that nobody could ever hack the files. Another option they could use is that, they could change the files’ passwords from time to time. In addition, there are bodies that control the management of information which includes the National Adult Social Care Intelligence Service (NASCIS) which provides a single national resource of information for social care services across England. It provides data such as information on the number of adults contacting social services, going through the community care assessment process, and the services they receive. Another example is The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) which also regulates information and investigate breaches of confidentiality. Also, there’s The Freedom of Information Act 2000 that provides public access to information held by public authorities. Public authorities must publish certain information about their activities and members of the public have the right to request information from public authorities. The Act covers any recorded information held by a public authority in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The Mental Capacity Act 2005 is the act where individuals are assumed to have the capacity to make decisions for themselves. Unless there is an assessment by a two-stage test showing otherwise. All decisions are made in the individual’s best interest. Any deprivation of liberty should be the least restrictive way of keeping the individual safe. Individuals can plan ahead, for an instance, an individual with dementia may request an appointment with an attorney to make financial or personal decisions so that when the times comes where they’re mentally incapable of doing it already, things are already fixed for them earlier. Individuals can make a legally binding advance decision covering refusal of treatment and could also make an advance statement covering wider issues. Advance statements are not legally binding but help people know the individual’s wishes when they can no longer express them. Moreover, The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has a code of practice which gives it a legal duty under the Mental Health Act to visit and interview detained patients, and to see records relating to their detention and treatment, to ensure that individuals are not detained illegally. When all is said and considered, the arrangements for managing informations is extremely vital in health and social care sector. As a health and social care professional, you must follow the policies and procedures on how to manage and store informations with confidentiality. Breaching the law might cause you harm and danger which can lead to unemployment and imprisonment. (DM5) Assess the benefits of multidisciplinary and multi-agency working for specific individuals with care and support needs. Working in groups and different agencies can offer wide range of advantages for health and social care professionals and for individuals with care and support needs. Working with other professionals in the same setting is not quite enough to deliver the best services which is why working with other professionals in different agencies is much more efficient as it gives them more opportunities. With different professionals, teams, and agencies involved, this will increase availability of equipments, facilities and staff and therefore can improve health problems. Service users are more likely to accept and trust services from health and social care sector if they know that there is wide range of availability and that these services are on a high standard quality. Multi-agency working benefits the professionals as they get to share and gain new knowledge , skills, and experiences along with other professionals and organisations. As a result, working together increases the availability of services and makes it easier to meet individuals’ different needs. Contentment of the Service Users: If there’s wide range of equipments, facilities, and services in a certain health and social care area, statistics has shown that service users are more likely to trust and be confident with the setting and with the staff and members. As a result, positive relationships can be built and effective communication will be developed which will eventually lead to successful delivery of treatment services as not only the physical needs of the services users are being met but as well as the social and emotional needs. The contentment of the service users addresses effective delivery of services which is a victory to the health and social care service providers as contentment means success in meeting the individuals’ needs. This also inspires the workers to work harder so the services that the service users are going to receive are maintained or better if improved. Competent Usage of Available Services: As we’ve tackled earlier, the more services available, the more the effective the services are. With wide range of resources, practitioners gets more relevant informations from co-professionals. These informations can help them examine and organise a more efficient care and treatment plan for the service users. In addition, it is extremely beneficial to have wide range of different professionals when it comes to treatment planning. For an instance, in a local health area, a service user comes to a psychiatric doctor to ask for help, guidance and treatment. The doctor cannot do this alone, therefore he/she needs to work with a team to further discuss the needs of the service user. He/She may work with psychiatric nurse, psychologists, occupational therapists, and social workers. As a team, they will discuss and assess the needs of the service user and how these needs can be met. They also need to consider that the equipments and facilities needed are available and competent before they carry out care and treatment. New Knowledge Gained and Skills Developed: Whilst working with professionals with different specialisations and different agencies/organisations, you share, learn, develop knowledge, skills and experiences from each other. This is beneficial for the health and social care providers as it enables them to expand their learnings about their roles and responsibilities. With expanded knowledge, it benefits the service users for they know that the professionals who are taking care of them has the adequate understanding of what the professionals are doing and that they have the capability to meet their needs effectively. Subsequently, a multi-disciplinary team is one of the most significant way to better organise a treatment plan for service users with different needs. A multi-disciplinary team consists of health and social care professionals from different areas in order to expand understanding and discover wide range of services to better give the service users the care and treatment they deserve to receive. (DM6) Analyse the impact of legislation and codes of practice relating to information management on multidisciplinary working. When working in health and social care, there are specific policies and procedures that you need to follow and consider as a service provider. This is to ensure that when working alone or even as a team, the informations being shared are well stored and managed. To secure the informations, the government has published variety of legislations and laws to protect both service providers and users rights to confidentiality. On the other hand, codes of practice was published to enable the service providers informed of their responsibilities when handling personal datas. It is important to understand the certain legislations and codes of practices in order to effectively manage private informations and maintain confidentiality. How does legislation and codes of practice impact information management on multidisciplinary working? Legislation and Codes of Practice are massive contribution in health and social care sector as it enables the health and social care professionals to be aware whether they are following the right policies and procedures or not in relation to storing service users informations. It is necessary for them to follow these so that they could provide the best treatment for the service users. Data Protection is used to control personal informations used by other agencies or organisations like multidisciplinary teams. Professionals involved are required to ensure that those informations are used fairly, within the law, and are only using the informations when necessary and by purpose. After all, informations must be securely kept and handled appropriately. This act also comes in behalf of the service users where their right to confidentiality is being recognised. It is their right to be ensured that their personal informations are not being shared with unauthorised people. The Equality Act was introduced to provide equal opportunities to both service providers and users. It is advantageous as it help the practitioners understand how to manage informations professionally and why managing and storing is important, especially when working in different teams or agencies. This act suggests that when providing care and support to individuals, it is significant to know that service users along with their personal informations has the right to be treated fairly and be kept with confidentiality. The Confidentiality Act suggests that the policies and procedures provided for the health and social care professionals must be followed in order to manage and store informations well. It helps the service users to understand that all the personal data that has been shared to the service users are ensured to be kept and not shared with anyone else unless permitted. The Health and Social Care Act 2012 created the health and social care information centre as the national provider of informations, personal data and IT systems for health and social care. This act set out how informations should be managed by the health and social care information centre. This is helpful because it enables the professionals to understand how to follow policies and procedures when handling datas and how they should be managed when working with different professionals, organisations, teams, and agencies. Collecting of informations has changed over the years as the face of technology kicks in. Before computers became prevalent, paper documents were used for record keeping; to those institutions who haven’t yet fully convert onto digital models, this is still how it’s done. Today, we find it easier to keep records digitally as it doesn’t take up much physical space. Many aspects of physical and mental health can be part of an individual’s health record, which includes: history of significant viral and bacterial illnesses, vaccination information, diagnosed allergies and other conditions, current and past medication and treatment history, significant improvements or setbacks during a current hospital stay. These pieces of informations are important to the day to day care of thousand of service users served by the health and social care system. Managing all of these as digital data makes it easy for the professionals to organise and access. It also allows service users to experience a continuity of care between the many professionals working on their case, reduces the risk of errors, and provides a stronger client profile for diagnostic purposes. However, if not managed appropriately from time to time basis, digital data too can lead to breaches of confidentiality. Therefore, it is important to change passwords so that hackers are not able to have access onto it. To conclude, as it is important to store and manage personal informations, it is also important to fully understand how it should be kept together with published legislations, laws, and codes of practices. With the use of legal policies, the safety of service users are ensured. Moreover, health and social care professionals should put in mind that the rights to confidentiality of the service users comes after the rights of care and treatment. (DD3) Justify how organisations and professionals work together to meet individual needs while managing information and maintaining confidentiality. To be able to provide the foremost care and treatment services for the service users, health and social care providers are required to involve in different care departments to understand wide range of services and meet the service users’ needs professionally and in a high standard quality. Whilst different professionals work together as a team to provide the best treatment, it is important to ensure that they acquire the greatest knowledge in maintaining personal informations and confidentiality. Health and social care professionals must ensure that when caring for a service user, the informations discussed must not be shared with anyone else, unless permitted by the service users itself. Keep Records Private and Confidential: A professional should ensure that any informations shared, big or little, no matter what should be kept in private from other organisations and agencies. By doing so, the professional is doing its job in accordance with the law and is making sure that anyone who’s receiving care is suitable for it. Confidentiality stands for taking responsibility for any informations shared between professionals and other organisations or agencies. Through keeping written or digital records in private, it enables the service users to keep up to date with their forms and they can later on decide whether they’d like to share these informations to other professionals. The decision is for them to make and professionals must not force a service user to share informations to unauthorised people without the permission of the service user. Share Personal Informations only if Necessary: This is one of the policies professionals in every health and social care sector must put in mind. When planning for care and treatment for a specific individual, it is important to ensure that the informations you’re sharing are the ones which are necessary and not the ones which others doesn’t need to know. Organisations only focus with major informations that can contribute in planning for care and treatment, it is not for them to know the service user’s personal data. When working with a team, it is important to be very careful with the data you’re sharing. No Public Access: In any health and social care setting, for an instance hospitals and clinics, there should be a place or a room where records are kept privately that only authorised persons has the access. It is inappropriate for service providers to leave any personal informations anywhere. This act is considered improper whether it is done intentionally or without intentions. As a health and social care professional, it is your obligation to take responsibility in handling personal informations with security. To be able to achieve this, staff and members should save a room where documents are put in a cabinet which includes a password so that it is not easy to access it. Also, the room should always be locked when nobody’s in there so that no unauthorised people can enter without permission. Update Healthcare Professionals about the Policies and Procedures: We can’t deny the fact that working in health and social care is stressing and causes tons of work. Not to forget that tons of policies and procedures are needed to be followed. If not updated regularly, professionals might ignore some of the policies and procedures and just let even the slightest illegal actions go through which is not appropriate and if caught can lead to unemployment. To secure confidentiality and to ensure that professionals are doing their job, organisations and agencies should provide them regular training sessions and meetings so they’d be updated with the policies and procedures when handling service users and their personal data. Moreover, working with different professionals, teams, and agencies doesn’t only focus with providing wide range of services but also need to consider policies and procedures when handling service users’ personal data and informations. The Mental Capacity Act 2005 states that people are assumed to have the capacity to make decisions for themselves, unless there is an assessment by a two stage test showing otherwise. All decisions are made in the person’s best interests. Any deprivation of liberty should be the least restrictive way of keeping the person safe. Individuals can plan ahead, for an instance, if they have dementia they may wish to appoint an attorney to make financial or personal decisions for them for a time when they have lost capacity. Individuals can make a legally binding advance decision covering refusal of treatment and could also make an advance statement covering wider issues. Advance statements are not legally binding but help people know the person’s wishes when they can no longer express them. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has a code of practice which gives it a legal duty under the Mental Health Act to visit and interview detained patients, and to see records relating to their detention and treatment, to make sure people are not detained illegally. The Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) publish standards of conduct, performance and ethics which members must follow. The include guidelines on fitness to practice. Standard two says ‘You must respect the confidentiality of service users.’ On top of everything, it is quite challenging for the health and social care professionals to maintain organisation of documents and confidentiality. But if you are really a professional and is dedicated to what you are doing, you must follow the policies and procedures as this is part of your role and responsibilities. It is significant to share informations with other professionals and agencies in order to provide the best care and treatment for the service users. However, always put in mind that when sharing informations, you must ensure that every detail you pass to others is legally approved by the service user. (DD4) Evaluate how multi-agency and multidisciplinary working can meet the care and support needs of specific individuals. Organising health care has been a challenge ever since in the United Kingdom. Improvements in medical technologies, greater levels of knowledge and awareness amongst patient populations and increasing demands for the variety of sources of health care available within the local health areas. At this point, massive increase of individuals are receiving care and treatment from public hospitals such as NHS. Despite the population, these organisations continue to deliver care and treatment for service users professionally and efficiently. But how? In this section, I am going to evaluate how working in teams or multidisciplinary working enhances the delivery of services in health and social care sectors. What is a team? “A team is a group of individuals who work together to produce products or deliver services for which they are mutually accountable. Team members share goals and are mutually held accountable for meeting them, they are interdependent in their accomplishment, and they affect the results through their interactions with one another. Because the team is held collectively accountable, the work of integrating with one another is included among the responsibilities of each member.” There has been numerous reports and documents that stated the importance of multidisciplinary teams in health care system. One report above emphasised the importance of working in teams if health and social care for individuals are to be of the highest quality and efficiency. For the last few years, this has been difficult to achieve due to barriers between professional groupings such as doctors and nurses. In addition, there are other factors that influences team working such as gender issues. For an instance, General Practitioners (GPs) and Doctors are predominantly men whilst the rest of the primary health care service population is predominantly women. In hospital settings, the ranks of consultants tend to be largely made up of men. Perhaps, we could say that the multiple lines of management, perceived status differentials between different professional groups and lack of organisational systems and structures for supporting and managing teams interferes the creation of multidisciplinary teams. Statistics has shown that working in teams leads to effectiveness of services. The clearer the team’s objectives, the higher the level of participation in the team, the greater the emphasis on quality and the higher the support for innovation, the more effective is the team in delivering high quality health care for the service users. Furthermore, practitioners working in well functioning teams were less likely to leave their organisations or professions rather than those working in poorly functioning teams. Social workers who work in hospitals, primary care, and community mental health with well functioning teams experience lower levels of stress. That is, if the team’s objectives are clearer. As much as you’ve thought about it, there are benefits of working in teams. This is beneficial for both the service providers and service users. Health and social care professionals who work in teams are much clearer about their roles and responsibilities because team working enables good communication and detailed negotiation of efficient work roles. Those working in teams also report a high level of social support; team members are able to support each other both practically and emotionally during stress. With team members working together effectively, this can lead to efficient delivery of service for the service users. Service users are more likely to be satisfied with the care and support they receive because of professional handling of the service providers. When professional groups are united such as General Practitioners (GPs), Health Visitors, Nurses, Midwives, Psychologists, Youth Workers, Care Managers, Social Workers, Physiotherapists, Occupational Therapists and Community Carers work well together, different perspectives and experiences are carefully discussed with each other to better decide about a service user’s care and treatment plan. Primary health care teams that include many different professional groups, deliver higher quality service users’ care and implement more innovations in service users’ care. In community mental health teams, effective communication between team members is associated with better mental health. In primary health care teams, statistics shows that in those teams that have regular meetings there are higher innovations of service user care, and teams which have at least one meeting a week have introduced a greater number of innovations in service user care than those which have fewer meetings. When all is said and done, working in teams/multidisciplinary working can contribute massively onto provision of effective and efficient care for service users with different needs as health care teams are able to have clear objectives, high levels of participation, emphasis on quality and support for innovation, provide high quality service user care. Members of teams that work well together have low levels of stress which leads to better understanding and communication in the workforce. As diverse range of professional groups works together, higher levels of innovation in service user care are created. Furthermore, with better understanding, cooperation, and communication, health and social care professionals are more likely to adhere a service user’s needs and meet these on a high quality standard which leads to successful delivery of care and treatment services. [Show More]

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