Managing and Administering Medication Policy in Health and Social Care

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
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

2HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE UNIT 3
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.