Understanding Specific Needs in Health and Social Care

Specific Needs in Health and Social Care
UNDERSTANDING SPECIFIC NEEDS IN HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE
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The City and State
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Specific Needs in Health and Social Care 1
Introduction
The UK has 11 million individuals who have varying limitations of either long-term
illness, disabilities or impairments. The once that are commonly discussed are the ones that
affect someone’s mobility, carrying or lifting objects. People also have different perceptions of
disabilities, health, or illnesses. The aim of this paper would be to discuss these concepts to bring
a clear understanding of each.
1. Section I
1.1 Analysis of the concepts of health, disability, illness, and behavior in relation to users of
health and social care services.
The concept of health, illness, and behaviors allows healthcare officials to find
resolutions into how various symptoms can be evaluated, understood, and acted upon by
providing individualized services. Behaviors may vary greatly depending on the illness,
disability, patient or doctor’s related variables.
Health
According to World Health Organization (WHO), health is one’s complete physical,
mental and social well-being which is someone’s wholeness (World Health Organization, 1948).
A person is healthy if he/she is functioning well either mentally, physically, and socially to
exercise one’s unique potential capabilities in one’s environment (Middleton, 2017).
Disability
The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) provides a
comprehensive definition that takes disability as an outcome of an interaction between a person
and four other factors which are the health condition, personal and the environmental factors

Specific Needs in Health and Social Care 2
(Wrold Health Organization, 2001). The Equality Act 2010 at section 6 defines disability as a
condition a long that is physically or mentally impairing someone to an extent of causing
substantial and long-term adverse effects on one’s daily life (Equality Act, 2010). The definition
goes beyond just biomedical definitions to addresses even the social dimension of disabilities.
Illness
According to (Boyd, 2000) illness is the way a person feels as an unhealthy experience
which is completely personal and interior to the patient’s inner person. Sometimes illness may
exist even where there is no disease.
Behavior
Behaviors are people’s reactions as a response to a health condition. Some people may
become aggressive, others stressed and others may engage in drugs as a way of coping with a
particular health condition (Pilling et al., 2015).
1.2 Assess how perceptions of specific needs have changed over time.
The perception towards specific needs has differed and changed significantly across
different communities. In Babylon, around 2000 Before the Common Era (BCE), inherited
disability was used in forecasting the future and there were cases of infanticide of the disabled
children. The old testament also saw disability as sin to God. Between 12th and 16th century, there
were cases of much discrimination, isolation, asylums, harsh conditions and inhumane treatment
of people with specific needs. It was until the mid-20th century when the disabled started being
recognized as humans with unique capabilities. However, the work (Claassens et al., 2013,
p.124; Bunning et al., 2017) states that people in the past viewed disability as evil spirits, bad
omen, human transgressions, will of God, curse, or supernatural forces. The 1992 soap opera
Eldorado marked the first public event having a disabled character. Improvements were then seen

Specific Needs in Health and Social Care 3
in 2012 The Olympic Games and Paralympic Games where the disabled persons were shown
winning elite athletic medals. In addition, the UK has also enacted taken various step in
empowering the people with special needs i.e the enactment and enforcement legislation such as
the Equality Act, and the enforcement of the Human Right Act to cater for the disabled.
1.3 Analyse the impacts of legislation, social policy, society and culture on the ways in
which services are made available to individuals with specific needs.
Legislations are avenues for social justice in the delivery of services to people specific
needs. They outline the rights which are the first determinants of well-being. For instance, the
Human Rights Act makes discrimination unlawful on people with special needs (Human Rights
Act, 1998). Legislations also create legal rules, duties, and powers of the officers providing the
services. Lastly, legislations regulate the conducts and decisions regarding service delivery. For
instance, the equality Act requires equality in the distribution of resources and services (Equality
Act, 2010).
Social policies help in addressing the social determinants of health (SDH) in people with
specific needs (Donkin et al., 2017). Policies provide definite guidelines for the delivery of
services by relevant departments and legislation. Policies inform social workers on
mainstreaming and integrating development practices to the people. Policies act like tools for
implementation of legislation to achieve socio-economic development, inclusion, and protection
of the social welfare of people with specific needs. A culture of society may determine the
behavior of people with specific needs. Cultural factors have the power of influencing the well-
being of people by influencing attitudes, parameters of coping, health intervention, rehabilitation
etc (Sousa and Almeida, 2016). For instance, culture may influence how a society perceives