Law, Policy, and Ethical Practice in Health and Social Care

This report explores the relationship between law, policy, and ethical practice in health and social care. It discusses how ethics informs healthcare practice, evaluates the national system of government in relation to healthcare, and examines the role of legislation and national policy. The report also highlights the implementation of different legislation for safe and healthy conduct within a healthcare setting.

Law, policy and ethical
practice in health and social
care
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Table of Contents
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
Explain in detail how ethics informs health, care and support service practice, giving practical
examples from own experience and current codes of ethical practice........................................5
Evaluate own national system of government in relation to its effect on health, care and
support service practice and practitioners...................................................................................5
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................5
The codes of practice, practice themes and key pieces of legislation and policy.......................5
The role of legislation such as the Equality Act 2010, Human Rights Act 1998 in health social
care and support services............................................................................................................6
The role of recent health and social care legislation or national policy in informing the rights
and responsibilities of health and social care support service practitioners................................7
The relationship between legislation and national policy and ethical practice...........................7
Implementation of different and relevant legislation in regard to safe and healthy conduct
within your work setting.............................................................................................................8
How legislation, policy and ethical considerations informs practice with the patient/service
user/client and the impact of unwarranted variation...................................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10
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INTRODUCTION
Healthcare practitioners are usually regulated and controlled by a range of laws and
policies while working within a health and social care organisation. Health law and policy is the
region of law which is concerned with health of individuals and population, along with
operations of healthcare system (Mittelstadt and Floridi, 2016). Many of the voluntary or non-
profitable organisations also require laws and policies in order to deliver care practices
proficiently, safely, legally and ethically. In this report Farnworth Care Home has been chosen
which is a healthcare organisation and serves facilities to individuals with age group of 65 or
over. The report will cover different features of legislation, statutory guidance, codes of practice,
and national and organizational policy. Furthermore, it will focus on relationship between key
legislation and national policy, of direct relevance to health and social care practice. At last,
impact of relevant law and policy on the outcome of healthcare organization has been explained.
MAIN BODY
TASK 1
Describe how the legislature, the executive and the judiciary set the legal and policy landscape
for health and social care practitioners
The main objective of legal and policy framework is to promote and protect the health
conditions of individuals within a community. However, government officials such as
legislature, the executive and the judiciary set these standards in a manner that has respect for
human, involving the rights of self-determination, confidentiality and non-discrimination. They
use a legal framework for developing such polices (Goldenberg and et.al., 2016).
Different factors are required for developing health policies. Firstly, the policymakers
should have an understanding of data and arguments which has been presented in order to access
the polices reasonably. Secondly, bodies of the policy making must be accountable publically.
Thirdly, the body of decision making, must be positioned for receiving and evaluating all the
necessary information on all aspects of health policy. At last, the government officials must have
a considerable criteria for making an appropriate decision. Such criteria will help to assist
decision makers for setting goals and accomplishing social, scientific as well as ethical
parameters for making a decision. Legislature, the executive and the judiciary undergoes several
steps for making policies such as:
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Analyzing interest of public health: The policy makers define the health purpose of the
policies which are made and make them according to the demands and requirements of public
regarding their health (Petrogiannis and et.al., 2017).
Analyze the effectiveness of policy: It is the responsibility of the policy makers to
analyze the effectiveness of policy on the public health and identify if any changes need to be
implement or not.
Develop a well-targeted policy: The policy makers determine whether the policy is
addressing the particular health problem. The policies and legal landscapes must be made
according to the health related problems facing by public in a society.
Summarize key features of legislation, statutory guidance, codes of practice, and national and
organizational policy.
Rules and policies have a significant role in ensuring improvement of public health.
Some of them are discussed below.
Legislation- It is important for the improvement and protection of public health. It is
require for effective regulation of health system. Key features diseases. The main role of
legislation is to safeguard and protect public health. It determine the rights of public as well as
ensure that each and every individual has been treated equally without any discrimination
(Allotey and Reidpath, 2018) .
National policies- It play an essential role in ensuring overall health of population.
Development of national policy is a complex process. They include decisions, plans and actions
that are taken for achieving particular health goals in a society. The policy include facilities such
as free medication, free vaccination as well as free diagnostics in public health hospitals.
Codes of practice: It set a standard for conducting and performing healthcare practices
for health and social workers. Some codes of practice for care practitioners are discussed below:
 Care practitioners should promote and upholds the confidentiality, right and dignity of
patients with in an organization (Nelson and Staggers,2016).
 Health professionals must work with their fellow employees in order to deliver and
maintain a high quality of services.
 Communicate effectively with patients in order to promote health and safety of
individuals within a healthcare organization.
 Promote equality, inclusion and diversity (Erwin and Brownson, 2017).
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Organizational policy: They are the set of guidelines and standards which are implemented to
ensure the health and safety of employees, service users and organization. Respective
organization use set standards and policies in order to encourage a constant organizational
behavior. They set some policy like maintaining equality in organization. Health professionals
should promote the confidentiality of patient’s information.
Explain in detail how ethics informs health, care and support service practice, giving practical
examples from own experience and current codes of ethical practice.
Ethics can be define as moral principles which governs the behaviour of individuals and
performing an activity. It is basically a branch of knowledge that focus on moral principles.
Ethics in health and social care organisation offers a particular framework to clinical
practitioners that is beneficial for them to ensure the safety of service users along with their
fellow providers. It is consider as an essential feature for a healthcare practitioner. For instance,
ethics in Farnworth Care Home will help to deliver a high quality of care to patients and bring
mutual respect as well as fairness in treatment.
Evaluate own national system of government in relation to its effect on health, care and support
service practice and practitioners.
`Healthcare in United Kingdom is basically a developed matter in its local areas with
each having their particular system of publicly funded healthcare. National system of UK is
beneficial to reduce health risks in public as they provide health and social care services to
individuals sustaining in the country as well as developed number of legislation to ensure safety
and health of public .It provides primary care, long term healthcare, in-patient care and many
other clinical services that has an overall positive impact on health of individuals.
TASK 3
The codes of practice, practice themes and key pieces of legislation and policy.
A code of practice can be define as a document which comprises of occupational safety
and health laws and regulations in order to provide practical guidance on how to meet legal
obligations. Codes of practice that need to be consider by healthcare professionals of Farnworth
Care Home are discussed here.
Code of practice: It gives a clear set of standards. It is important to protect people from
any kind of risks or harm who are using health and care service. They are involved in promoting
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dignity, confidentiality, rights and well-being of the service users of healthcare organizations.
Health professionals of the care centre could work together to make sure that quality care is
being provided to the service users (Orthwein, 2017).
Some of the legislations and policies that are required in respective healthcare
organisation for delivering high quality of care services are mentioned here.
Quality protect act: It was developed in 1988 in order to improve the social service for
improving health of individuals. It help in the expansion of user feedback and professional’s
social work training. The main objective of this act is to help the children and poor families with
their daily living.
Care standards act 2000 has introduce a scheme for protection of adults. The main
objective of this scheme is to ensure that no one is allowed to work in a healthcare sector if they
have ever involved in harming or abusing individuals or place them at risk. Care acts make sure
that individuals receive proper services that prevent their needs from becoming more serious or
delaying the effect of their needs. They make sure if individuals are getting correct information
and advice they need to make decisions and care.
The role of legislation such as the Equality Act 2010, Human Rights Act 1998 in health social
care and support services.
The main objective of legislation and national policy is to safeguard and protect the
health and safety of overall population of the community. The legislation and national policies
regarding health and social care practices is discussed below:
Human act right 1998: It is an act of parliament in United Kingdom. It help the
individuals to defend their right in UK courts. It can be utilized by each and every citizen of the
country regardless of their age. Organizations such as Farnworth Care Home can also use this act
for a better service delivery to their service users. The law protect the various rights of
individuals such as it gives a authority to individuals to save and protect their life by means of
this law. It gives a protection against slavery and forceful labour work. It gives a right of liberty
and freedom to the individuals It gives a freedom of thought, religion and belief. Healthcare
organizations must need to understand the principals of human right for maintaining dignity.
Equality Act 2010: This particular act legally protects individuals from any kind of
discrimination within the health and social care organisation. It basically replaced traditional
earlier anti discrimination laws and ensure that all patients and stakeholders of organisation are
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being treated equally without any discrimination on the basis of caste, gender, race, ethnicity and
many more. the context of your work, your role and the nature of your involvement with the
service user/patient/client.
The role of recent health and social care legislation or national policy in informing the rights and
responsibilities of health and social care support service practitioners.
It is important that care practitioners in should deliver effective treatment and better
quality of care to patients in Farnworth Care Home so that their overall health conditions can be
improve in an effective way. The role of legislations and policy for healthcare practitioners is to
ensure that excellent quality of care is being provided. One of such national policy id discussed
here.
NICE- It is a national policy for safeguarding and protecting health of individuals of
United Kingdom. It provides national assistance and advice for improving health and social care
practices in organizations. They set some care and services to the needy people with some
serious health conditions (Helm and Jones, 2016). It protect and promote good health of
individuals. Guidelines of NICE help health professionals to prevent ill health and to improve
their quality of health services. Care practitioners adapt and provide health and social care
services. Farnworth Care Home should also use this national policy for delivering quality care to
individuals.
The relationship between legislation and national policy and ethical practice.
Ethics are the moral principles which is concerned with what is beneficial for society.
However, law is a system of standards and guidelines which are set for the organizations to
deliver proper care to the individuals (Wallerstein and et.al., 2017). It is important for health and
social care professionals to fulfil the ethical, law and policy requirements for making their care
services efficient and valued. If a nurse or any care professionals has been told to do a surgery,
there would be several concern which they are going to be addressed. It is necessary to analyze
the serious consequences and nature of the surgery to make a wise choice. Laws and ethics both
are the system which maintain moral values and save individuals from any kind of violation.
They provide some set standards for the health and care professionals for what they may do or
what they could not.
Laws and policies are the guidelines which need to be followed by the care practitioners
in order to deliver a high quality of care to the individuals. However ethics are the morals and
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behaviours for the care professionals which they need to be maintained while treatment is going
on (Akrami and et.al, 2017). However, ethics may vary from individuals to individuals but laws
and policies are strictly need to be consider.
Implementation of different and relevant legislation in regard to safe and healthy conduct within
your work setting.
Legislation and policies are essential in health and social care centers as it provide an
assistance for making a plan of action and for enhancing efficiency of their care services.
Implementation of such policies and legislation in Farnworth Care Home will enable the
organization to deliver quality services by marinating proper dignity and respect of their service
users. Some policies regarding safe and health conduct are discussed below.
Health and safety policy: It is the duty of supervisor to ensure proper care for their
employees and to ensure that their health and safety at workplace is being conducted properly.
Consequences could be serious if there is no implementation of health and safety policy in
healthcare organization. It is important to implement this policy in respective organization to
prevent any kind of risks and injuries in their premises. It is the responsibility of stakeholders of
organization to access the serious risk factors and to develop some strategies in order to deal with
some serious risk factors.
Lone Working Policy and Risk Assessments: It is a process of analyzing and accessing
risks in the treatment of patients. The main objective of this policy is to identify the needs to be
done to ensure the health and safety of service users. Along with the service users, this risk
assessment policy is implemented on organization also in order to analyse different risk factors
that could be develop during operations of the organization.
Data protection act 1998: Privacy and confidentiality are the key elements for the
individuals using health and social care services. Data protection act requires data controllers and
public body to meet with a range of data protection services. Data protection controllers decide
how personal data can be processed.
How legislation, policy and ethical considerations informs practice with the patient/service
user/client and the impact of unwarranted variation.
Human right law are the principals or norms which are concerned with equality and
fairness of individuals. It has been an important part communities since many years. However,
human rights has a positive impact on individuals regarding fair and equal treatment in health
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and social care centres. In several countries including UK, healthcare organizations has a
responsibility and duty to respect and promote basic rights of human. It is important in health
care and support services as they promote respect, dignity, privacy and confidentiality of service
users. Respective organization should implement human right laws in their premises in order to
deliver fair and high quality of services to the customers. Implementation of human right law
will enable the stakeholders of the health and social care organization such as nurses, care
professionals, health care professionals and many others, inspire and support older and aged
individuals regarding their treatment and make assure that their overall services is being
provided without any discrimination. It enables privacy in care home and care services in own
area of individuals. It is the responsibility of care practitioners to keep the information of their
service users in a highly confidential manner (Bartkowiak and Asquith,2017). According to the
human right law it is the duty of a health professional that their patients and customers must
receive respect and a level of dignity during whole treatment process. It ensures that each
individual in the organization is being treated equally and without any biasses or discrimination.
Public authorities in both national and international level are supposed to consider all the
guidelines of human right law and respect human rights while delivery of services.
Unwarranted variation can be refer to as variation of medical practice pattern which
cannot be determine by medical need, illness and other aspects of evidenced based medications.
It is majorly responsible for low quality of care which is often ignored by healthcare
organisation. Thus impact of unwarranted variation on patient is that it usually results in
occurrence of other diseases and illness as low quality of services are being provided. It can
negatively effect on patient health.
CONCLUSION
It has been concluded from the above study that, laws, policies and ethical practices are
important in health and social care as it help in to maintain confidentiality and dignity of
patients. It help the health professionals to deliver their services according to some specific laws
and standards. Such policies and ethics will help in the overall improvement of health of
population within a community. Impact of such laws and policies has been discussed in the
above study.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
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sex workers: human rights, policy, and social contextual influences. PloS one, 11(5),
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Petrogiannis, K.,and et.al ., 2017. Review of policy, law and ethics. In Before Birth (pp. 38-52).
Routledge.
Allotey, P. and Reidpath, D. eds., 2018. The health of refugees: public health perspectives from
crisis to settlement. Oxford University Press.
Erwin, P.C. and Brownson, R.C., 2017. The public health practitioner of the future. American
journal of public health. 107(8). pp.1227-1232.
Nelson, R. and Staggers, N., 2016. Health Informatics-E-Book: An Interprofessional Approach.
Elsevier Health Sciences.
Helm, J. and Jones, R.M., 2016. Practice paper of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: social
media and the dietetics practitioner: opportunities, challenges, and best practices. Journal of the
Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. 116(11). pp.1825-1835.
Abbasi, M.,and et.al., 2018. The evolution of public health ethics frameworks: systematic review
of moral values and norms in public health policy. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy. 21(3).
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Orthwein, W.C., 2017. Psychiatric and mental health nursing: The craft of caring. CRC Press.
Bartkowiak-Théron, I. and Asquith, N.L., 2017. Conceptual divides and practice synergies in law
enforcement and public health: some lessons from policing vulnerability in Australia. Policing
and society. 27(3). pp.276-288.
Wallerstein, N.,and et.al., 2017. Community-based participatory research for health: advancing
social and health equity. John Wiley & Sons.
Akrami, F., and et.al, 2017. Analyzing the politico-moral foundations of the Iran’s health system
based on theories of justice. Journal of medical ethics and history of medicine. 10.
O'Loughlin, M. and O'Loughlin, S., 2016. Social work with children and families. Learning
Matters.
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