and therefore reduces levels of confidence and self – esteem, affecting emotional health. 6.2 It is important that we treat each person as an individual, making us as a social care worker aware of the individual’s feelings, whilst upholding the importance of privacy in order to maintain dignity as well as respect, including respect for the individuals spiritual, cultural and religious beliefs. We must work in partnership with other organisations as well as own to set and enable to achieve realistic goals, and therefore encourage empowerment for individuals to gain self – esteem and gain confidence. Active listening will also encourage and develop independence. Unit 8 1.1 • Manual handling operations regulations 1992. • Management of health and safety at work regulations 1999. • Health and safety at work act 1974. • (RIDDOR) Reporting of injuries, Diseases and dangerous occurrences regulations 1995. • (COSHH) Control of substances hazardous to health 2002. • All relevant up-to-date legislation from the health and safety executive (HSE). 1.2 The main points of health and safety policies and procedures is to follow them by agreed ways of working between employees and employers as well as other outside person(s). Ensuring approved codes of practice within the health and social care setting, in which relate to health and safety. These include recording and reporting procedures; such as how we deal with accidents and / or injuries, as well as emergency and / or first aid
Health and safety at work act 1974 and 1992: This act is put into place for all places of employments. All employees have a duty of care to provide for the staff, ensuring that all equipment is safe and it does not have any risk. Employee, staff and volunteers have to take care of themselves and others around them.
The main features of the Health and Safety at Work Act (1974) is that it requires certain health and safety procedures to be maintained in a health and social care setting, for example, the act explains that there must be, safe operation and maintenance of working equipment, plant and system, maintenance of safe access to the workplace, safe use, handling and storage of dangerous/hazardous substances, training of staff to ensure that there is health and safety, to provide welfare for staff at work.
M1 – I am also going to describe how health and safety legislation, policies and procedures promote the safety of individuals in a health or social care setting.
Describe how current health and safety legislation, policies and procedures are implemented in the setting.
Legislations/codes of practice relating to general health and safety in a health or social care work setting are: The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974; Riddor 1995, COSHH (Control of Substances Hazardous to Health); Manual Handling operations regulations 1992; Health And Safety (First aid regulations 1981); Fire protection (Workplace) Regulations 1997; Food Safety Act 1990; Personal Protective Equipment and Management of Health and safety at work regulations 1999.
Describe how current health and safety legislation, policies and procedures are implemented in the setting
health and safety procedures and practises should be under continual scrutiny and areas for improvement should be monitored and dealt with. A good method of monitoring & improving are health, safety and security procedures are visually. Check visitors have signed in the visitor’s book, look for items blocking fire exits or hallways, wet signs are in place during cleaning, COSHH cupboards are kept locked, medication trolleys are secure, hoists are clean and stored in a correct storage place. Policies and procedures need to be reviewed regularly to ensure they are still relevant, circumstances in workplace can change and new risk assessments will need to be put in place or old ones reviewed. Policies and procedures may need evaluating and developing
When an emergency occurs and first aid is required it is always important for a qualified first aider to carry out any first aid required there are many reasons for this, the most important is that if a non qualified person try s to give first aid they may cause more damage or injury to the individual, it is also against policies and procedures of organisations and health and safety legislations.
Develop health and safety and risk management policies procedures and practices in health and social care (M1)
In every work place there should be policies set in place. These policies come from the law and make reference to the standard that is legally required in a health and social care setting. These include Fire Escape plans, Health and Safety policies and
Health and safety procedures are in place to protect anyone from injury or harm, they’re there to prevent any hazards that may come into play in the office. In order to keep yourself and your colleagues safe, the procedures should be followed.
Workplace safety is a major issue faced by nurses in healthcare settings. It is said that, hospitals are hazardous workplaces; unsafe workplaces are dangerous for the patients too. Today, many nurses are suffering hospital violence, heavy workloads causing serious injuries, contracting diseases caused by exposures to certain diseases, antineoplastics, and certain health care toxins, that workers bring home to their families. This in turn leads to acute staff shortages. Ample supply of nurses is very important in providing safe and timely care to the patient population. Maintaining a healthy workplace will enable the healthcare systems to control costs associated with healthcare management as well as enhancing the productivity of nurses in health care. It is estimated that creating a healthy environment in the workplace not only benefit nurses, but also benefits patients and other members of the health care team. This report explains some of the safety issues existing in health care, which directly or indirectly affects nurses as well as the health of the Canadian population.
Health and safety legislations and regulations are implemented in own work settings because there will always be a possibility of accidents happening which may damage someone’s health and all work will expose people to hazards, however the health and safety legislations and regulations are put in place and used so that these risks and hazards are under control and so everyone’s health (staff and children) are safe at all costs.
Hi Jeffrey, I think you make some amazingly good points, and I can say I whole-heartedly agree with them for individual citizens. I might have been unclear, but I wanted to try and look at this question from the standpoint of individuals in the business world. Do you feel that safety legislation is out of place in that context? I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on that.