Managing and Administering Medication Policy in Health and Social Care

This essay critically evaluates managing and administering medication policy and reviews all the systems that monitor health and safety at the setting. It discusses the importance of a health and safety culture and hand hygiene program on sustaining safety practices and achieving positive benefits for clients as well as the organization.

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

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Introduction:
Although medicines are beneficial for maintaining health and physical outcome of
patient, however medication overuse is a highly recognized problem in clinical medicine. The
overuse of medication is associated with an increase in hazards and adverse events. Other
problems associated with medication overuse include utilization of diagnostic test that is not
necessary, use of therapeutic treatment, which causes more harm than benefits and other issues
(Morgan, Wright and Dhruva 2015). This has negative implications on health and safety in the
organization. In response to these issues, policies related to medication management and
administration of medication plays a role in controlling overuse of medication. In addition, the
safety culture and regular audit process plays a role in controlling risk and hazard events. The
main purpose of the essay is to critically evaluate managing and administering medication policy
and conduct a review of all the systems that monitor health and safety at the setting.
Analysis of the health and safety managing and administration policy:
The management and administration of medication policy has been implemented in
various settings such as care home, health care setting and other health services. In accordance
with the management and administration of medication policy, the registered person in the
setting has the responsibility to protect services users from the risk of unsafe medication use.
This is done by monitoring arrangements related to obtaining, handling, administrating, storing
and disposing off medicines (Donaldson et al. 2014). The desired goals from the standards and
code of practice related to the management and administration of medication policy are to ensure
that service users get the medicine on time and they are provided all information about the
medicine being prescribed. The providers can achieve this goal when they handle medication
safely, ensure that it is safely administered and follow all guidelines related to safe medication

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administration (Centre for Policy on Ageing 2011). To control medication overuse and ensure
that the key goals and objective of the policy is achieved, it is essential to have robust
arrangement for good practice related to medication administration and communication among
all health care staffs in the setting. All staffs at the setting must be encouraged to comply with
the procedures and practice to improve the safety of medication use. Error detection and
reporting system is also a crucial part of medication management. To encourage safe practices,
supporting staffs to actively detect and report about error is important (Elden and Ismail 2016).
Procedures to monitor and review health and safety:
The Health and Safety policy are guiding documents that provides the direction regarding
the steps to be taken to promote health and safety. However, to ensure compliance with the
safety practices and management of hazards and adverse events in the setting, it is essential to
have an internal process to monitor and review hazards and safety outcomes in the setting. This
can give an overview about the compliance with the health and safety program and significance
of the action taken to control risk and hazards (Arena and Jeppesen 2016). For example, in health
and social care setting, regular auditing of risk is done. The main purpose of such Health and
Safety audit is to evaluate performance of service users, identify any errors or malpractice related
to health and safety and identify training needs for particular staff. The health and social care
setting is exposed to several new risks because of major changes in health care regulations and
unforeseen issues for the industry (Ginter, Duncan and Swayne 2018). For health care providers,
managing existing risk in organization becomes a challenging task while trying to maintain
organization mission and patient care goals.

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Internal auditing process is a thorough risk assessment that identified all the areas in the
health care system where risk has been found and quantifies those risks. The advantage of the
internal auditing process is that it helps in regular inspecting of internal control structure and find
areas that can be modified (Sendlhofer et al. 2015). In the health care setting, the internal audit is
a highly structured process where risk assessment and risk control process helps to manage
emerging risk and drive efficiency within internal audit. The setting has important error reporting
structure in place, which allows staffs to report about errors. Internal audit and review process
also exist to identify unforeseen or unreported errors. After the identification of risk and hazards,
several risk control experts are present who evaluate near miss cased or hazard events and
analyse the cause behind it. The risk is classified according to severity and this form of division
helps to prioritize actions needed to control risk. If fault resources or infrastructure is the reason
behind a hazard event, then the equipment or structure is inspected and replaced. If the risk is
due to the mistake of any staff, then adequate action is taken as per the tenurity of the staffs. The
strength of the internal audit process at the setting is that it has strengthened internal networks
and supported internal auditors to tap external network networks that can provide insight about
new changes needed in practice (Considine and Currey 2015).
Importance of a positive health and safety culture
In order to achieve the goal of patient safety and optimal client health, there is an
increasing interest on changing the organizational culture of health and social care setting.
Promoting a safety culture creates a conducive environment for employees and other support
workers to comply with patient safety practices (Wang et al. 2014). For our health care setting,
special emphasis and focus on developing a safety culture is one of the reasons for very low
incidence of medical errors and the development of a highly satisfied workforce. The setting has

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an appropriate safety culture and this was possible because of the vision of the leader. The leader
played a role in efficiently incorporating all elements that is required to develop a safety culture.
Safety culture was created by the leader’s commitment to discuss about negative events and learn
from those mistakes. By the recognition and analysis of errors, proactive identification of
unforeseen threats and the inclusion of an efficient system for reporting and analysing adverse
events, it was possible to develop a safety culture (McFadden, Stock and Gowen III 2015).
A safety culture is dependent not only on adequate patient safety process or on practice,
it also depends on the attitude, skills and knowledge of the staff at the setting. We could motivate
the workers to engage and comply with patients safety standard by making them aware about the
important of patient safety at training and induction sessions. Brasaite et al. (2016) defines that
safety culture consist of elements like provider’s attitude towards patient safety climate,
environmental factors such as staffing level, team factors such as supervision and team work and
staff factors such as motivation and positive attitude towards patient safety. Careful
amalgamation of all these factors plays a role in optimal safety management. Introducing new
practice changes to enhance the quality of service is also necessary to develop and sustain a
positive health and safety climate. To improve the service at the setting, it is planned to
encourage hand hygiene within the whole organization. This is recommended because of high
incidence of health care associated infection. I recognize that very few staffs comply with hand
hygiene protocol at important moments. It is recommended to implement a hand hygiene
program to prevent all kinds of infection and reduce risk to client as well as other staffs in the
setting. In contrast, not complying with hand hygiene practices can increase cost the associated
with care and increase burden for care workers too (Srigley et al. 2015). Hence, hand hygiene
campaign can lead to client satisfaction and promote delivery of high quality and safe care.

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Personal responsibility related to health and safety practice:
As an experienced member of the health and social care setting, I have always been
accountable for the safety of clients. Instead of being engrossed in my own task as a health and
social care worker, I take the effort to understand other needs of client that could fulfil their
health and social care needs. My communication skill is also my strength as this has helped me
to effectively deal with diverse kinds of client. I have the understanding about cultural sensitivity
issues and psychosocial dilemmas for clients belonging to different social classes. I use this
knowledge to pacify client and suggest them right course of action to modify their life. I am also
extra vigilant about any errors at the setting occurring due to equipments or infrastructure.
Whenever I notice possibility of such errors, I actively report it to the concerned authority. I
suggest new practice improvements ideas to the leader too as I always keep myself updated with
new changes and new developments in the field of health and social care.
Conclusion:
The report gave an insight into the review of systems that monitor health and safety in the
setting. By the implementation of practices related to safe medication administration and regular
auditing process, the report gave an insight into the importance of these practices in controlling
errors and enhancing the quality of care. The report also indicates the importance of a health and
safety culture and hand hygiene program on sustaining safety practices and achieving positive
benefits for client as well as the organization. The leader’s commitment and responsibility of
senior members is also crucial for health and safety. This has been demonstrated through self-
reflection on personal role at the setting.

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