Managing Incidents in Healthcare Settings

This assignment details the priorities and responses for managing two critical incidents in a healthcare setting: physical abuse of a service user and an incident of exposure to infection. It emphasizes ensuring the safety of individuals involved, reviewing relevant policies and procedures, maintaining respect and dignity, minimizing infection risks, and adopting appropriate hygiene practices.

Unit 3
Health, Safety and
Security in Health and
Social Care

TABLE OF CONTENTS
P1 Potential hazards and harms arising from them in a health and social care setting...............1
P2 Influence of legislations, procedures and policies..................................................................2
P3 Conducting a risk assessment.................................................................................................3
P4 Priorities and responses while dealing with two incidents.....................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

P1 Potential hazards and harms arising from them in a health and social care setting
Groveland Park care home is a luxurious care home that provides quality care to the
residents (Groveland Park, 2017). In a health and social care (HSC) setting, following can be the
hazards and associated harms:
Hazards due to equipment
There are various equipment used in a HSC setting such as trolleys, medical appliances beds,
patient handling aids etc. If the equipment is not in the safe condition, it may pose harm to those
who use it. Also, wrong use of the equipment by untrained staff or by patients in the absence of
staff also acts as a hazard (Cunningham and et.al., 2012). Following are the harms posed by this
hazard at Groveland Park Care home:
 Equipment hazards may lead to injury due to falls, entrapment between the bed rails etc.
 It may also lead to harms such as entanglement, crushing and cutting.
Exposure to infection
Infection can act as a hazard for the staff, visitors as well as the patients of HSC setting.
Biochemical agents such as parasites and viruses may be present in the HSC setting as even after
proper housekeeping, their complete elimination is not possible (Chartier, 2014). Infection can
act as a hazard at Groveland Park Care home if it is not controlled appropriately. The following
harms may be caused due to this hazard:
 It leads to exposure to infectious diseases and longer hospital stays.
 It harm the health of visitors, patients as well as the staff.
 Blood borne infections such as HIV may prove to be life threatening.
Hazardous substances
Various substances used in the health and social care settings may act as hazard. These
may include cleaning products, medicines, chemical wastes, biological wastes etc. (Brown and
et.al., 2010) Exposure to these hazardous substances may cause harm to the patients, staff as well
as visitors at Groveland Park Care home.
Working conditions
These can act as hazard for the staff as well as the patients if appropriate health and
safety concerns are not taken into consideration. Hazardous working conditions may cause harm
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to the staff by exposing them to unsafe surroundings which may lead to falls, stress and
psychological distress.
Physical environment
Hazard due to physical environment that may cause harm to patients as well as staff may
be poor lighting within the room (Vogus, Sutcliffe and Weick, 2010). It can be lead to trips and
falls leading to serious injuries at Groveland Park Care home.
Working practices
In health and social care sector, working practice may include training regarding manual
handling, working with challenging behavior etc. lack of these training may expose the staff and
patients to the harm due to injuries.
P2 Influence of legislations, procedures and policies
Legislations, policies and procedures and their impact on health and social care has been
discussed below:
 Health and Safety at Work Act 1974- This is the main piece of UK legislation
concerning health and safety. According to this act, the employers are required to protect
the health, safety and welfare of all the employees when at work (Halligan and Zecevic,
2011). This influences the staff in the form of staff- service user ratio and training
considerations. Groveland Park Care home is required to adopt standard staff- patient
ratios. It is also required to provide training to the staff.
 Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992- These regulations set out the risk
assessment requirements associated with the manual handling tasks. The employers are
required to comply with these requirements (Regulations, 2017). This would influence
Groveland park care home as the work practices have to be designed in a way that these
avoid hazardous manual handling operations.
 Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR)
2013- This is the law according to which the employers are required to report as well as
keep record of the work related incidents that lead to death, occupational diseases and
near misses. This influences HSC setting lie Groveland Park Care Home as it has to
amend its policies and associated procedures to ensure that workplace incidents are
reported.
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P3 Conducting a risk assessment
Risk assessment has been carried out at Groveland Park Care Home as follows:
Hazard
identified
Harm People affected Control
measures
Further action
Steps at the main
door
People may get
injured by
falling from the
steps.
Staff
Residents
Visitors
Railings have
been installed to
aid the staff,
residents as well
as the visitors.
The residents
who are
vulnerable to
falls and have
physical
disabilities will
be assisted by a
staff member.
An alternative
doorway with
slope will be
constructed.
Unclear, wet
floor
Wet floors and
floors with
objects scattered
all over may
cause harm
through falls by
ripping over
objects and
slipping on the
wet floors.
Residents
Visitors
Staff
Appropriate
housekeeping
services have
been adopted at
the care home
Care will be
taken to keep the
floors dry and
avoid movement
of staff and
residents till the
floor is wet.
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Infections and
cross
contamination
It may lead to
spread of
infectious
diseases and loss
of health.
Residents
Staff
Hygiene
practices are
adopted.
Disinfectants are
used.
Appropriate
hand hygiene
principles will
be followed.
P4 Priorities and responses while dealing with two incidents
Incident of abuse
Dealing with the incidents of physical abuse is important in order to ensure welfare of the
service users. Patents suffering with dementia, learning disabilities and behavioral problems may
be vulnerable to abuse (Cunningham and et.al., 2012). Following are the priorities while dealing
with incident of abuse of a service user:
 Ensuring safety of people- This is the first priority and would require proper monitoring
and observation of the staff as well as service users.
 Reviewing of policy- The second priority would be to review the policy of abuse.
The responses are as follows:
 Care will be taken to maintain respect and dignity of the service users.
 The second response will be dealing with suspected abuse.
Incident of exposure to infection
Following are the priorities:
 Review of procedures- The procedure for hygiene control and housekeeping will be
reviewed. This is required to identify any loopholes and rectify those (Chartier, 2014).
The responses to the incident of exposure to infection is as follows:
 The risk of infection and cross contamination will be minimized.
 Infection control principles will be adopted.
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REFERENCES
Journals and Books
Brown, J. S. and et.al., 2010. Distributed health data networks: a practical and preferred
approach to multi-institutional evaluations of comparative effectiveness, safety, and
quality of care. Medical care. 48(6). pp.S45-S51.
Chartier, Y., 2014. Safe management of wastes from health-care activities. World Health
Organization.
Cunningham, F. C. and et.al., 2012. Health professional networks as a vector for improving
healthcare quality and safety: a systematic review. BMJ Qual Saf. 21(3). pp.239-249.
Halligan, M. and Zecevic, A., 2011. Safety culture in healthcare: a review of concepts,
dimensions, measures and progress. Quality and Safety in Health Care. 20(4). pp.338-
343.
Vogus, T. J., Sutcliffe, K. M. and Weick, K. E., 2010. Doing no harm: enabling, enacting, and
elaborating a culture of safety in health care. The Academy of Management
Perspectives, 24(4), pp.60-77.
Online
Groveland Park, 2017. [Online]. Available Through: <http://www.grovelandpark.co.uk/home/>
Regulations. 2017. [Online]. Available Through:
<http://www.hse.gov.uk/msd/pushpull/regulations.htm>
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