Health & Social Care: Concepts of Equality, Diversity & Rights

This essay examines the concepts of equality, diversity, and rights within the context of health and social care, referencing The Equality Act 2010 and other relevant legislation. It defines equality as a state where individuals are treated the same, diversity as the understanding and acceptance of differences, and rights as legal and ethical principles of freedom. The essay further discusses discriminatory practices such as disability, gender, age, weight, racial, and religious discrimination, highlighting the potential negative effects on service users, including marginalization, restricted opportunities, and low self-esteem. Specific effects of discriminatory practices, such as negative behavior, disempowerment, and stereotyping are also explored. The solution references academic articles to support its claims and provide a comprehensive overview of the subject matter. Desklib offers a range of study tools, including access to similar solved assignments and past papers, to support students' learning.

March 5 | 2016
HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE

CONCEPTS OF EQUALITY, DIVERSITY AND RIGHTS
IN RELATION TO HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE
Equality
• State in which the individual feel same with respect to their number,
amount, degree, value or rank.
• For maintaining the equality in health care firms and other
companies, government of UK has introduced The Equality Act 2010.
• This act consists of some protected characteristics with respect to
the age, gender, religion, race, marriage and many more.
Diversity
• State in which people understand that they are different from each
other.
• It is the process in which health and social care organisations create
friendly culture for every staff member and service user can
participate and contribute in the functioning.
• All people have different values, friends, social group, believes and
many more.

CONT….
Rights:
• Legal, social or ethical principles of freedom.
• There are various rights given to the patients by
the social care organisations for maintaining their
respect, independence and dignity.
• According to the rights, everyone should be
treated same and has the right to live freely.
• It includes The Human Right act 1998,
• The Care Act 2014, The Health and Social care act
2012, etc.

1.2 Discriminatory practice in health and social care
Discrimination: It can be direct or deliberate, intentional or
unintentional and it depends on the purpose of the work.
Types
• Disability Discrimination
• Gender Discrimination
• Age Discrimination
• Weight Discrimination
• Racial Discrimination
• Religious Discrimination
Based on the following factors:
• Labelling: It refers to the give name or a group of people
• Stereotyping: It means having views or opinion about the group and
applying this opinion to others belonging to that group.
• Prejudice: It is a state of disliking someone only due to the group they
belong.

1.3 Potential effects of discriminatory practice on service
users of health or social care services
• Marginalisation
• Restricted opportunities
• Low Self-Esteem

1.4 effect of three different discriminatory practice in health
and social care settings
• Negative Behaviour
• Disempowerment
• Stereotyping

REFERENCES
• Salway, S., Mir, G., Turner, D., Ellison, G.T., Carter,
L. and Gerrish, K., 2016. Obstacles to “race
equality” in the English National Health Service:
Insights from the healthcare commissioning arena.
Social Science & Medicine. 152. pp.102-110.
• Rhode, D.L., 2014. Foreword: Diversity in the Legal
Profession: A Comparative Perspective. Fordham L.
Rev. 83. p.2241.
• Boccagni, P., 2015. (Super) diversity and the
migration–social work nexus: a new lens on the
field of access and inclusion?. Ethnic and Racial
Studies. 38(4). pp.608-620.