Early Years and Childcare Regulations PDF

1.1/1.2/1.3
The primary legislation, policies, and
procedures
Influence on health, safety, and security in
the early years
Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 This act ensures low accident rates in a
child care by lowering risks and hazards
that can harm staff and service users. A
child care can set up numerous equipment
to prevent accidents. In nursery setting,
safe environment for children and teachers
will be provided.
General Food Hygiene Regulations
1995 (Food Safety)
This regulation focuses on food and drinks.
The health of the consumers is enhanced as
the immune system of the older residents is
weaker hence prone to food-related
infections. It ensures proper food hygiene is
followed. Food will be checked before serve
and proper hygiene will be maintained in
the kitchen.
Manual Handling Operations
Regulations 1992
It requires employees to employ less
hazardous manual handling ways in a
childcare. This reduces accidents and
possible injuries influencing workers
safety. In nursery setting, children will be
treated in safe area in order to reduce
accidents.
Data Protection Act It relates to personal confidential
information1. The security and safety are
influenced as the personal data are kept
private. Personal information of both
children and employees will be secured in
encrypted devices in nursery setting.
COSHH It calls for assess of risks concerned with
hazardous substances. This influences the
health of individuals as contagious diseases
are prevented.
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Safeguarding This makes health a safe surrounding. The
safety of children is influenced by this.
Food safety 1995 This act inspects and recommends the best
food for submission. It also removes the
foods that are not fit for consumption as a
result of improper hygiene. It influences
the health of the consumers and the staff
because poor foodstuff posts a risk to their
health. The can lead to diseases, food
poisoning or even allergies.
Lone working This regulation ensures individual
worker’s safety. It influences individuals
working in the field as they can be late for
the service.
Reporting accidents This is important in an educational setup.
It influences health and safety as future
accidents from the same cause can be
avoided.
Cleaning
It is vital in healthy set-up to regulate the
spread of infections and viruses. It
influences the child health by making
effective cleaning at various parts.
Disposal of body waste If proper procedures are not followed,
wastes are hazardous. Wastes shod be
disposed of properly to influence children's
health.
Fire Evacuation It is a written document stipulating
measures taken in case of fire. 2This
influences staff safety in case of lack of exit
doors.
Security of premises The premise should have security to
influence the safety of the staff and
children. For example, visitors should sign
time in and out.
Codes of practice The codes set about judicial requirements,
conduct expectations and professional
behaviour for all nurses and midwives in
all practice settings. The codes are essential
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for this profession, as they help nursery
assistant and midwives to render safe
exercises as part of their professional
function or role. For example – As a
nursery assistant It is essential to make
sure that he or she should communicate
properly with children. They should take
care of various needs of children such as
toys, activities, food etc. The nursery
assistant needs to take care of children
within the school.
White papers The white papers outlined the
requirements for a formalized ability based
programs related to nurse residency and
where that nurse could be new to
ambulatory practice. It determines the
needs, discusses national perspective and
provides insights for both ambulatory
residency and acute care programs and
examine various solutions to make sure
ambulatory workforce that is effective in
advancing health and leading change. For
example -As a nursery assistant it becomes
important to develop white papers to
ensure all the activities or requirements are
fulfilled according to the program of care
and learning activities developed for the
children.
EYFS statutory framework The Early years' foundation stage sets
standards for the development, learning
and care of children for the birth till 5
years old. All Ofsted and schools
registered early years provide needs to
follow these regulations or framework such
as nurseries, preschools etc. For example -
An individual working in a pre-school
should have sufficient information related
to this framework so that he or she can
take care of children under 5 years. This
includes proper nourishment, exercises and
caring attitude towards children.
UN convention on the rights of the
child
The United Nations Convention on the
Rights of the Child is a Human Rights
Treaty which sets out political, civil, social
economic, health and cultural rights of
children. This Convention defines a child
as any human being under the age of
eighteen, and unless the age of majority is
attained under national legislation. For
example -The nursery assistant needs to

follow the rules and consider following
rights for giving significant care to
children. This includes right to be known,
children should be aware of the education
or learning programs provided to them.
Working in an open and transparent
way
This action states that nursery assistants
need to perform various functions or tasks
in an open and transparent way to ensure
an effective performance. There should not
be any hidden practices that could be
performed, as it refers to encourage good
practices within the workplace. For
example – The nursery assistants need to
make sure that children are aware of
learning environment and place. The
nursery assistant should perform each and
task openly and for the benefits of children.
Duty of care. All the nurses owe a legal obligation or
duty of care to their patients and also have
a higher duty of care than someone who
has no or limited medical knowledge. If
nursing staff fails in their duty of care and
any harm is experienced, then the patient
has right to redress for that harm or
damage. For example – Nursery assistant
are implied with the duty to take care of
children. The duty includes various
practices such as getting waste disposed,
nourishment of children, protection from
injury ,providing them education, helping
children in learning process etc.
Implementation of health and safety legislation, policies, and procedures
Below is a description of how the above policies are implemented:
Health and safety act at work
Since the employers do not want to be held responsible in case of an accident, they follow
this act correctly promoting the safety of the children. It forces employers to do a risk
assessment to ensure that there are no hazards.
Food safety (General food hygiene) Regulation
This regulation is important because it promotes the safety of the staff in a child care due to
the call for the individuals to complete certification for hygiene prior to serving a workforce.
Most of the staff are not young and active, the health of this class of people is not strong as
such thus proper hygiene is required3.
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Manual handling operation regulation 1992
The primary focus of this regulation is to formulate safe strategies for lifting heavy loads. It is
possible through conducting workmates to back up you or consulting this manual. This,
therefore, promotes the safety of the staff (Handling, 1992).
Data protection act
This regulation requires every piece of information regarding any staff member is protected.
It should be private and consent of assessors given to them. This will, in turn, promote the
safety of the workers. It is important for every organization to keep sensitive information
confidential as possible.
COSHH
A number of plans have been put in place to do away with incidents, accidents, and
emergency cases. This is possible through control of dangerous substances to promote the
individuals' safety. This means that there are an exits on every floor or fire extinguishers in
case of a fire break. A first aid kit may also be present for accidents resulting from sharp
objects or bloody substances.
Safeguarding Act
In this regulation, people with criminal record are not allowed to work for a given workforce.
This promotes safety as the employer knows the conviction of each and every employer. It is
important to check on the workers' credibility to ensure the well-being of the children
Food safety act 1990
The food served in a child care should meet the minimum hygienic standards required or is
cooked properly. Child cares should be inspected for this reason to promote the health of the
workers (Hobbs, Fearne and Spriggs, 2002).
Lone working Act
This promotes individual safety by making contact over the communication media. They are
supposed to be checked in case of any risk until their turn is over and get out of office.
Reporting accidents
When an accident is reported, it enables an organization to come up with ways that can be
used to get rid of the same accidents in future. These include a change of safety equipment
and procedures. An example is signalling people in case of a wet and slippery place to avoid
an accident.
Cleaning Act
This creates conducive working environment lowering the hazards thus promote the safety of
the children. This will also increase the job performance in any place of work.
Disposal of body waste
To promote the safety of individuals in a child care, disposable wastes must not be mixed
with other wastes that are recyclable. For example, sharp objects are placed in the separate
bin.

Fire Evacuation
In this regulation, viable steps are taken against the risks and the impacts of fires promoting
individuals' safety in a childcare. In the same way, visitors sign in and out in the visitors'
book for security reasons.
Security on premises
Security promotes the safety of individuals in a childcare. It ensures that the childcare is a
safe place to be. Installation of CCTV cameras will help to know if there are intruders4. Such
cases can be tracked by use of CCTV cameras.
Code of practices
Nursery assistant needs to follow seven main standards in care practices, standard one –
Responsibility and accountability, standard two Evidence based practice, standard three –
Relationships, standard four – Continuing competence, standard five – ethics, standard six –
leadership and standard seven – management of resources. All the standards states that
Nursery assistant are responsible and accountable for their practices, their practices should be
based on evidences such as children records, attendances, etc. They are also responsible for
management of resources in classes or school. (Emblen,1992).
White papers
White papers can be used to provide a brief understanding of why ambulatory nurse leaders
should institute more structure and rigour in the transition programs for any RN new to
ambulatory practice. There must be an understanding for differences between a residency
program and orientation.
EYFS statutory framework
This framework sets the standards that all early years’ providers should meet in ensuring that
children should be developed and well-learned. It also makes sure children are kept safe and
healthy. This framework is developed for nursery assistant that provide childcare services and
is related to nurseries and local authority that provide childcare services (Isaacs, 2014).
UN convention on the rights of the child
This convention provides guidelines for the international communities and individual
governments for developing permanent mechanisms or bodies to promote the monitoring,
coordination and evaluation of activities in all sectors. Its implementation assists the
governments to ensure the visibility of children and their needs in the process of developing
policies.
Working in an open and transparent way
Nursery assistant mentioned some important elements that they think will help in improving
the quality of child care, collaborative working relationships, competent nursery assistant,
adequate staffing, managerial support etc.
Duty of care
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In the role of Nursery assistant, he or she has a duty of care to raise any kind of concerns
related to any aspects of the various practices or work. The nurses take care of the equipment,
and good practices of the staff etc. (Duty of care implementation, 2017).

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Emblen, J.D., 1992. Religion and spirituality defined according to current use in nursing
literature. Journal of professional nursing. 8(1). pp.41-47.
Isaacs, B., 2014. Bringing the Montessori approach to your early years’ practice. Routledge.
Hobbs, J.E., Fearne, A. and Spriggs, J., 2002. Incentive structures for food safety and quality
assurance: an international comparison. Food control. 13(2). pp.77-81.
Handling, M., 1992. Manual handling operations regulations 1992 guidance for regulations.
L23. HSE Books, London) ISBN 0. 11. pp.886335-5.
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