Roles and Responsibilities of Health and Social Care Workers

This document provides an introduction to the roles and responsibilities of health and social care workers in delivering care and the role played by health and social care professionals to protect individuals in their care. It also discusses the importance of regulatory bodies in delivering high quality care and their roles related to inspection of care settings. The document includes information about the professional bodies that regulate the professions within health and social care.

Introduction to Health and
Social Care
1

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................4
Q1. Explanation of the main roles and responsibilities of health and social care workers while
delivering care and the role played by health and social care professionals to protect
individuals in their care...............................................................................................................4
Q2. Evaluation of the importance of regulatory bodies in delivery of high quality care along
with their roles related to inspection of care settings and identification of the professional
bodies that regulate the professions within health and social care..............................................6
Q3. (a). Explanation of the role of the inter- professional team in delivering health and social
care along meeting care needs of patients and the difference between multidisciplinary and
inter-professional team working..................................................................................................9
Q3. (b). Discussion of the potential barriers to team working and how they could be overcome
...................................................................................................................................................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13
2

INTRODUCTION
Better health is the first requirement of all persons irrespective to any factor like status and
condition. It is the duty of care settings that must provide effective health care services to all i.e.
equal and holistic in nature. They have to adhere the all legislations and guidelines provided by
the government so maximum benefits can be transferred to the persons. Care settings also have
the duty to effectively adopt and follow the industrial policies and standards where roles and
responsibilities will be disbursed among the care workers and staff by considering the same as
base (Adams, Dominelli and Payne, 2017). This has large importance towards the improvement
of service as bound the workers to work according to the predefined standards along with
adherence of the person centred care approach which is best in the direction of delivering
optimum care. The role of regulatory bodies is also optimum in the direction of improving health
care services. It is must for them to regularly inspect health and social care provision so
directions can be provided to improve current level of service and bring obligation over the
management that they must adhere the effective practices. The main aim of this report is to
ascertain the role of different parties in improvement of care services within a health and social
care setting.
The aspects cover in report includes main roles and responsibilities of health and social care
workers in delivering care, role of health and social care professionals in protection of
individuals in their care, importance of regulatory bodies in delivery of high quality care, roles of
regulatory bodies in inspection of health and social care provision and identification of the
professional bodies that regulate the professions within health and social care. Also, cover about
role of the inter- professional team in delivering health and social care, roles and responsibilities
of the inter-professional team in meeting care needs, difference between multidisciplinary and
inter-professional team working and potential barriers to team working along with the measures
to recover same (Alston and Bowles, 2019).
.
3

MAIN BODY
Q1. Explanation of the main roles and responsibilities of health and social care workers while
delivering care and the role played by health and social care professionals to protect
individuals in their care
Social care is a term utilized for help that is given as far as physical and passionate help.
The primary point is to assist individuals with living their lives in a glad and sound way
notwithstanding their incapacities; either physical or enthusiastic. Life is unusual and individuals
can have the requirement for such help anytime. Health and social consideration is required to
keep up individuals' autonomy, control, and respect. Health and social care labourers can offer
their help to the individuals deprived in their own homes, private homes, day focuses or other
help offices (Baldwin, 2016).
A Health and social care labourer has a huge task to carry out in the general public. They
can positively affect the individuals around them on the off chance that they comprehend their
obligations perfectly. All the different roles and responsibilities of health and social care workers
is defined below:
Role of health and social care worker
 Providence of care to the family member of patient at the time of certain situation.
 Providing care to an individual who is facing trouble due to the conflicts in their various
relationships.
 Providence of care to the person who faces the challenge in old age regarding the
performance of basic functions or some any other health related issue where assistance
required to recover (Bartley, 2016).
 Providing effective care to the person or patient who is mentally distress or having some
other kind of mental disorders.
 Helping the person who is alcohol and drug addict through focusing over the process of
recovery from such habit along with motivation to live healthy lifestyle.
 Help the person who is physically disabled and not able to perform the functions through
providing assistance in performance of their work along with supporting in recovery from
the situation of isolation from society.
 Delivering the optimum care as per the instructions of professional.
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 Focusing over the usage of equality principles in delivering of their services means no
differentiation will be done on the basis of their status and any other factor.
Responsibilities of health and social care worker
 Caring for the physical solace of patients, for instance helping them to wash themselves
and discharging chamber pots.
 Keeping offices spotless and clean, for instance cleaning hardware and making and
changing beds.
 Taking and recording fundamental perceptions, for example, pulse and temperature.
 Helping patients to eat and to move about, in the event that they have versatility issues.
 Listening and conversing with patients (Currer, 2017).
 Assisting the patient in performance of basic hygiene function.
 Providence of medications to patients on time to time according to the suggestions of
professional.
 Taking of the vital health related information and convey the same to professionals for
effective care of a patient.
 Perform the work related to collection, storing and labelling of the biological specimen.
 Time to time sterilization of medical equipment’s.
 Keeping the supplies of hospital stocked and organized.
 Performing effectively with other workers such as nurses, healthcare professionals and
therapists to provide optimum care to the patient.
 Work related to the perfect disposition of waste and hazardous materials.
 Effective compliance with the all rules, legislations and procedures exist or applied in
hospital.
Roles of health and social care professionals in protecting individuals in their care
The purpose of the health and social care professional is to enable person to live an
independent and conferrable as long as possible, helping and protecting those who require a
degree of extra practice and physical support (Curtis and Burns, 2015). There are number of
health professional such as doctors, social workers, nurses, occupational therapists and
physiotherapists, pharmacists etc. All these have important and essential role in protecting an
individual while delivering care and protecting them from any kind of illness or diseases. Main
and central role of health and social care professional is the provision of care as well as protect to
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adults or children in time of requirement, otherwise supporting aged group of people from
diabetes or other kind of illness. Social care is given by different types of organisations and an
individual. Along with this, nurses, pharmacists, and GPs as well as other allied health
professional work within the community or society as an important part of primary care team.
Each and every health and social care professional bring an innovative or effective professional
skill and dimension with aim to enhance the care and also the quality of life among persons with
dementia. Healthcare professionals play a critical and central role in enhancing quality and
access of health care for an individual. They are responsible for giving essential and health
services that support as well as promote health, prevent diseases, and deliver quality in health
care services to person, families and societies based on the approach of primary health care.
There are some duties of health and social care professional for protecting individual in their
care. Some are explained as below:
 At the same time as local authorities have entire responsibility or duty for protecting
leadership and actions, all health care professional has a role of care to safeguard an
individual from any kind of harm or risk (DePoy and Gitlin, 2019).
 For protecting children, this is enshrined within the children act 2004, section 11, whilst
section 10 of the act needs collaboration with local authorities at entire levels of the
health and social care organisation.
 For adults, the care act 2014 specified the requirement for local authorities, police and
NHS to work with each other with purpose to protect adults.
 Another role and responsibility of health and social care professional is to identify and
recognise potential abuse between people that helps them in protecting those people from
abuse.
 Routinely communicate all information with other professionals to make sure a multi-
agency approach to protecting an individual.
Q2. Evaluation of the importance of regulatory bodies in delivery of high quality care along with
their roles related to inspection of care settings and identification of the professional bodies
that regulate the professions within health and social care
The main role of regulatory bodies is to focus over the functioning of all private and public
care organisations operates in all over the nation i.e. UK (Glasby, 2017). They also have the
work related to providing direction to such organisations so they can adopt the same in
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deliverance of better care services to their people of society. The main work performed by the
regulatory bodies is related to the regular inspection of care settings regarding the practices they
followed for providing the treatment to patients. It creates an obligation upon the care
organisations that must perform the work according to the standards and directions otherwise
have to face the negative consequences in the form of fine or discontinuation of activities.
Everything is inspected by these regulatory bodies that government legislations were followed by
the care organisations are not, working according to the standards or not, having qualified staff
and professionals at workplace or not and adhering the standards or not. They also have the work
related to the formulation of principles and regulations for governing the activities of all in the
beneficiary direction of society and providence of optimum health care service to all over the
nation. Here, the information about the regulatory bodies is provided below:
HSE is the national autonomous controller for wellbeing and security in the work
environment. This incorporates private or publicly possessed wellbeing and social consideration
settings in Great Britain. This likewise work in association with our co-controllers in nearby
specialists to examine, explore and where important make implementation move. There are
numerous different bodies answerable for controlling various parts of these segments, a
considerable lot of whom have more explicit forces and enactment than HSE and may
subsequently be in a superior situation to react to patient or administration client episodes or
protests (Lewis, 2018). There are many other separate regulators that work effectively in their
own different areas. Care Quality Commission is the one regulatory body that provides the work
in England. This played the effective role regarding the development of care services in this area.
Similarly, the regulators work in Scotland includes HIS, Care Inspectorate and MWC. Whereas,
the regulators prevail in wales and focus over the functioning in that particular area includes
CIW and HIW. The one who performs the work as overall UK based regulator is MHRS known
as Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory agency (Regulatory bodies, 2020). There is
huge importance of these regulatory bodies in deliverance of the high quality of care. This will
be understood from the points defined below:
Creates obligation to adhere legislations, regulations and standards: The regulatory
bodies do the regular inspection of care settings as they following the legislations, regulations
and standards perfectly within their premises or not. This creates the obligation upon them must
adhere all and perform the functions accordingly otherwise has the face negative consequences.
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Timely direction at the time of need: The regulatory bodies in the regular inspection
identify the deviations and provide the direction to the organisations that what they have to do
for improving their current level of services. This further id in removal of barriers and
deliverance of better care services.
Regular appraisal of care setting and staff performance: The regulatory bodies have
the work related to the appraisal of care setting and employees performance. Here, everything is
considered as what practices were followed and employees were qualified or not. This help in
existence of effective personnel’s in the care setting that are able to provide optimum care.
Redressing all issues of patients: The regulatory bodies also have the work related to
the redresses the issues of patient (Rämgård, Blomqvist and Petersson, 2015). This not only help
in optimum care but aid in bringing change in acre settings so no one in future come with same
kind of issues.
Roles of regulatory bodies that inspect health and social care provision
There are different regulatory authorities as defined above but all of them have some
common roles which are defined below:
Inspection: The first work all regulatory bodies is related to the inspection of the current
working functionalities of care organisations and identify the gaps according to the prevailing
legislations, regulations and standards. This help in the identification of deviation and directing
the care setting to improve the services as per standards.
Improvement: This is the main activity where working is done with positive insight.
This is about the development of positive changes in working procedures and processes
according to the need and requirement of time. This help in the direction of getting up to date as
per the current market practices (Richards and Hallberg, 2015).
Redressing patient issues: The patients have the right to appeal with such regulatory
bodies against the care organisation functionalities and practices. In this case, regulatory
authority investigates in the matter and provide correct judgement. This help in proceeding
towards direction of improvement along with ascertaining the support of society and individuals.
Professional bodies that regulate the professions within health and social care
There are many professional bodies and the description regarding to all is provided
below:
 General Medical Council (GMC): This regulates the doctors.
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 Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC): This regulates nurses and midwives
 General Dental Council (GDC): This regulates dental professionals in the UK.
 General Optical Council (GOC): This regulates optometrists, dispensing opticians,
student opticians and optical businesses.
 General Chiropractic Council (GCC): This regulates chiropractors.
 General Osteopathic Council (GOsC): This regulates osteopaths.
 General Pharmaceutical Council (GPC): This is the regulator for pharmacists,
pharmacy technicians and pharmacy premises in Great Britain.
Q3. (a). Explanation of the role of the inter- professional team in delivering health and social
care along meeting care needs of patients and the difference between multidisciplinary and
inter-professional team working
Role of the inter- professional team in delivering health and social care
Inter- professional team introduces to the collaboration, coordination and cooperation
expected among team members of different professions in protecting people and delivering
patients-centred care together. One of the main role of inter- professional tem is to communicate
an individual’s roles and duties clearly to the patients, families and many other healthcare
workers and health professionals to provide care that is timely, safe, effective, equitable and
efficient (Schneider, 2016). There is another role of inter- professional team is to ensuring
consistency and continuity of care as well as to motivate and mobilise healthcare professionals
for delivering of effective and timely health services to the needy people.
Roles and responsibilities of the inter-professional team in meeting care needs in the case
study
In order to meet care needs and requirements of an individual, inter-professional team
plays an important and significant role and responsibilities. These are operating and monitoring
medical equipments, help in performing of diagnostic tests and evaluating the results, educate all
patients and socialites about health conditions or disorder, give advice as well as emotional
support to service user and their family members.
Difference between multidisciplinary and Interprofessional team working.
Basis of comparison Multidisciplinary team
working.
Interprofessional team
working.
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Definition Multidisciplinary team refers
to the group of health and
social care employees who are
main members of different
disciplines such as social
workers, psychiatrists etc. All
these are plays important role
in providing effective service
of the patients (Sipilä, 2019).
Interprofessional team is
group of person in which
different number of healthcare
professional with talents;
diverse skills and knowledge
collaborate to accomplish a
common goal.
Knowledge Capable to explain the core
patient care functions or
activities that are perform by
the other disciplines.
Capable to explain the
professional milestones,
training and competencies of
other disciplines.
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Q3. (b). Discussion of the potential barriers to team working and how they could be overcome
Team work introduces to the effective process of working together with a people or group
of people in order to accomplish a goal. It is an important and essential part of health and social
care as it is crucial for social workers and health care professionals to work collaboratively to
make sure people using the health care service receive the care and protect they require. But
there are some potential barriers while working in a team or group. Some batteries apart from
their effective solutions have been explained as bellow:
Clash of cultures: This is a main barrier or team working because at workplace, there are
number of diverse workers is working that have different cultures and background, and not
understand about the current culture. This will create more difficulties at workplace while
working in a team (Thombs and Osborn, 2019).
 Strategy to overcome clash of culture barrier: Recognize that integrating behavioural
health into prime care might be challenged through bringing collectively teams of health
care providers that have frequently trained in ‘cultures’ with very various orientations.
Another and effective ways is to focusing on patient goals as well as linking these to
behavioural and medical targets can overpass this culture gap.
Inadequate skills in effective teamwork: This is another barrier that exists within
working with a group of workers. For example: in this some workers not have proper knowledge
and skills about the healthcare so that, they cannot provide their more contributions in making of
decision related to the health care and delivering of health services to the individual. This will
create conflicts among teamwork that resulted in poor performance and productivity.
 Strategy to overcome barrier of inadequate skills in effective teamwork: Identify
facilitator/champion in order to support team building and also use structured process to
develop the team and build workflows. Along with this, training is another way for
increasing skills and improving knowledge among workers that have lack in field of
health and social care. This will help in achievement of better outcomes and delivering
of quality of service to the patients easily (Wiener and et. al., 2015).
Therefore, above mentioned all these are main batteries of team working that have negative
impact over team workers and also healthcare professional. In order to overcome these barriers,
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some strategies and ways were used that will be more effective and essential by overcoming all
barriers effectively.
CONCLUSION
It has been concluded from the above report that there is huge importance of good health
and social care workers along with professionals as these will provide the opportunity to deliver
optimum care service. The role of regulatory bodies is also optimum as these not only inspect but
provide the right direction for improving the current level of services. The presence of effective
services within the care settings is always depicts as positive sign regarding deliverance of
optimum care to all persons of society.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Adams, R., Dominelli, L. and Payne, M. eds., 2017. Social work: Themes, issues and critical
debates. Palgrave Macmillan.
Alston, M. and Bowles, W., 2019. Research for social workers: An introduction to methods.
Routledge.
Baldwin, M., 2016. Social work, critical reflection and the learning organization. Routledge.
Bartley, M., 2016. Health inequality: an introduction to concepts, theories and methods. John
Wiley & Sons.
Currer, C., 2017. Responding to grief: Dying, bereavement and social care. Macmillan
International Higher Education.
Curtis, L. A. and Burns, A., 2015. Unit costs of health and social care 2015. Personal Social
Services Research Unit.
DePoy, E. and Gitlin, L. N., 2019. Introduction to research E-book: Understanding and applying
multiple strategies. Mosby.
Glasby, J., 2017. Understanding health and social care. Policy Press.
Lewis, J. ed., 2018. Gender, social care and welfare state restructuring in Europe. Routledge.
Rämgård, M., Blomqvist, K. and Petersson, P., 2015. Developing health and social care planning
in collaboration. Journal of Interprofessional Care. 29(4). pp.354-358.
Richards, D. A. and Hallberg, I. R. eds., 2015. Complex interventions in health: an overview of
research methods. Routledge.
Schneider, M. J., 2016. Introduction to public health. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Sipilä, J. ed., 2019. Social care services: the key to the Scandinavian welfare model. Routledge.
Thombs, D. L. and Osborn, C. J., 2019. Introduction to addictive behaviors. Guilford
Publications.
Wiener, L. and et. al., 2015. Standards for the psychosocial care of children with cancer and their
families: an introduction to the special issue. Pediatric blood & cancer. 62(S5).
pp.S419-S424.
Online
Regulatory bodies. 2020. [Online]. Available Through: <
https://www.hse.gov.uk/healthservices/arrangements.htm>
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