Health and Safety Guidance Document for Residential Care Setting

Running head: HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE UNIT 3
Health and Social Care Unit 3
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

1HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE UNIT 3
Health and Safety guidance document for residential care setting:
This is a workplace guidance document that introduces all news staffs at the residential
home regarding the health and safety priorities for the setting and the need to comply with all
health and safety legislation, policies and procedures within the setting. This document provides
an insight into the concept of hazard and risk at the setting, process of hazard assessment,
reporting structure for risk and hazard and person responsibilities to prevent harm of service
users.
Identification of hazards and risk in the setting:
Hazard at workplace is defined as the factors that increase the likelihood of potential
damage, harm or adverse health effect for service users or other staffs. The examples of harm or
adverse effect include harm to people (due to health effect), harm to organization or property
(due to equipment damage) (Glendon, Clarke and McKenna 2016).
In contrast, risk may be defined as the chance that a person will be harmed or they may
be affected if exposed to a hazard (Glendon, Clarke and McKenna 2016). Hence, good
understanding about hazard may help to prevent harm and identify risk to health and safety for
services users too.
As our residential setting is providing services to adults with dementia, the potential form
of hazards present in the environment may be environmental conditions like no bed rails or wet
floors. Identification of such hazard will be important for workers to prevent falls (Fukuda,
Shimizu and Seto 2015). There might be behavioral hazards for staffs or patient in the form of
bullying too. Hence, identifying and reporting about it will be necessary to prevent fear, anxiety
and depression among staffs and patient.

2HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE UNIT 3
Steps to follow to communicate health and safety information:
We have a systematic reporting structure and adequate resource to support staffs or any
person at the residential setting to report about the hazards. The process of communicating about
health and safety issues at the setting has been made easier by the following processes:
 A record keeping book has been developed for managers to report about all forms of
hazards, severity of harm and actions taken to prevent harms. According to the Health
and Safety at Work Act 1974, it is the responsibility of employers to make arrangement
for ensuring workplace safety and absence of risk to health (legislation.gov.uk 2017). In
accordance with this legislation, the record keeping book is an arrangement to accurately
report about hazards or risk at the setting.
 The rules and procedures related to reporting about hazard and reporting it to top
authorities will be displayed at important points so that workers can review and report
accordingly. Safety signs will also be implemented in patient rooms, galleries and
staircase to help staffs take the required precaution to prevent harm to dementia patient.
 Staff training and induction arrangement is also in place to develop concepts of staffs
regarding potential hazards and risk likely to be present at the setting. It will give
information about ways to assess hazard and risk and know about ‘when’ and ‘how’ of
using facilities like alarm call point or the accident book.
 All staffs are requested to report about hazards to their concerned leaders or directly
communicate to supervisors or managers at the setting.
The above mentioned steps a rare in compliance with the RIDDOR (Reporting of Injuries,
Diseases, Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013) legislation as it put duties on employers