Analysis of Health and Safety Measures in UK Health and Social Care

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Health and Safety in the Health
and Social Care Workplace
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................3
LO1........................................................................................................................................... 4
1.1........................................................................................................................................ 4
1.2........................................................................................................................................ 6
1.3........................................................................................................................................ 7
LO2........................................................................................................................................... 8
2.1........................................................................................................................................ 8
2.2........................................................................................................................................ 9
2.3...................................................................................................................................... 10
2.4...................................................................................................................................... 11
LO3......................................................................................................................................... 12
3.1...................................................................................................................................... 12
3.2...................................................................................................................................... 14
3.3...................................................................................................................................... 15
CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................................... 17
Reference............................................................................................................................... 18
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INTRODUCTION
In this assignment, we will deal with the health and safety measure in the health and social
care setting. Maintain or achieve a healthy lifestyle is a key to happiness. WHO and other
organisation are dealing with the system, procedure and policies regarding health and
safety management. We will discuss the dilemma we have in adopting the new policies and
procedure in the HSC sector. Both the organisation as well as the care provider are
responsible for maintaining the health and safety measure in the social care unit. At last, he
will be evaluated or monitor the health and safety measure in the organisation.
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LO1
1.1
In health and social care setting, there are numbers of policies, system and procedure has
been adopted for health and safety of stakeholder. Some are
Health and Safety at Work Act 1974
This act has covered a wide range of topics related to safety, welfare and health in the
different HSC sectors. In this act, staff have a responsibility to take good care and support
with other stakeholders (Lundgren and McMakin 2018).
Health and safety at work regulation 1992
In this act, the workers need to implement the safety and health measures by providing
good communication and training procedure. The workers should record the finding and
carry out evaluation risk (Lassailly et al., 2015).
Health and Safety Regulations 1981
In this act, the workers should carry first aid box and equipment in the emergency and the
health care professional should be known about first aid measure.
RIDDOR Act 1995
Reporting of injuries, dangerous and diseases occurrences regulations act in 1995. In this
act, the workers or people should report to incidents in the organisation. This act includes
 Reporting all the injuries, accident and dangerous illness, severe injuries of greater
than 7 days
 Maintain the record and data related to accident and injuries in a file or on system
 Assessing the pattern of accident or disease while evaluating risk
 The record should be maintained and up-to-date.
Food Safety Act 1990
This act covers the preparation, storage and service of food (Boyle, 2015). The organisation
are responsible to provide healthy and nutritious food which is safe for the patients. If the
organisation has failed to fulfil the demands then the government could take interventions.
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Health and safety measure can be implemented in the workplace by above laws. In the UK,
the health department is ensuring the safety measure in the HSC setting.
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1.2
In the given case story, bosses from Winchester and Eastleigh NHS trust are facing problems
with slips and trips on wet organization floor. The NHS government has planned health and
safety measure in the HSC sectors. The UK government-run public health scheme and health
care. In this scheme, the health and safety scheme has been distributed to local
organisation and health care department. Around one million people are suffering from a
slip and trip injuries. Around 60 per cent of injuries are due to fall from the height. 20 to 30
per cent of people from slip or trip injury may be associated with head injuries, bruises and
hip fracture (White, 2018). The fracture of the hip, spine, forearm, ankle, pelvis, leg and
upper hand or arm is the most common fracture associated with the slip and trip injuries.
One in every six injuries is due to slip and trip cases (White, 2018). 20 per cent work-related
injuries may be due to slip and trip accident (White, 2018).
Health and safety management is a vital element in the social and health care organisation.
The health and safety management could be taken in the NHS trust
 Use of micro fibre mop or dry mop to reduces the risk of slip and trips
 Mops should be positioned in the container so that it should soak up cleaning fluid
and water
 Staff should not move in a wet place until it is dry
 The NHS trust should follow the RIDOOR under which the rate of fall could be
decreased dramatically.
The NHS trust could manage the safety and health of a physically disabling individual. As
they need special care and attention because they are unable to perform their work by own
(Demeritt et al., 2015). The care and support for the disabled individual may include dining
out every week in a restaurant or cafe as they cannot go alone. The people may want to eat
pizza but the care worker think pizza is unhealthy and it should not be consumed on the
daily routine. The health and safety workers can improve the person mental thinking for
making a health decision. In this, the health worker should motivate or encourage so that
they won't get a bully to form others. Health care providers should take responsibility of
consuming unhealthy food. However, the responsibilities and management of health and
safety are related to the NHS trust as well as a person (Aina et al., 2015).
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1.3
Different organisation maintain different safety and health priorities. In the NHS trust, the
following steps are needed to maintain the health and safety of the people. In the NHS trust,
the advisor said that the housekeeping worker should reluctant to change. As they are the
main who can maintain the cleanliness in the hospital. The first priorities in maintaining the
health and safety measure in the organisation are cleanliness and slips and trips on the wet
floor. The following measure could be taken to reduce the chance of slips and trips are
(Hignett et al., 2015)
 Housekeeping is one of the main fundamental levels of prevention form slip and trip
 Immediately the area covered by spills should be clean
 The spills and wet placed are marked
 Debris from the floor should be sweep or mop
 The walk place should be free from clutter and obstacles
 The faculty light bulbs and switches should be replaced
 The drawers and cabinet should be closed when there is no use of it
 The cables should be covered that cross the walking place
 The carpet, mats and rugs should be placed flat
The housekeeping department is playing a vital role in health and safety measure in the NHS
trust. Good housekeeping is important since they are the one who maintains the cleanliness
or sophisticated flooring. Without them, the health and safety measure could not be fully
effective.
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LO2
2.1
In the context of providing health and safety measure in the NHS trust, it is important to
know the information regarding the work of social care unit. It could be institution decision
planning or stakeholder care planning (Chang et al., 2016). The information could be
taken from risk evaluation procedure. Risk evaluation system consist of determining the
hazards, the severity of hazards, and measurement of risk, monitoring and evaluating the
risk, preventing the risk. In the given case history of the obese population in the UK were
associated with the risk assessment. The health and safety of obese person were in the risk.
The risk assessment may include
 Lack of staff member to handle the obese person
 The NHS trust is not performing bariatric surgery
 Infrastructure not well developed
 Lack of appropriate equipment for an obese person
 The ambulance does not have specialist vehicles
 Persons are not performing physical activities
 Unhealthy diet and food
All this risk assessment may lead to difficulty in managing the obese person in the NHS trust
(Marx, and Jones, 2017). The lack of this factor would lead to unsafety of patients. The
NHS trust should take appropriate measure in order to health and safety of an individual.
This risk assessment information has been beneficial in making procedure and planning for
personal care as well as the NHS trust decision process.
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2.2
In HSC, various types of policies have been governed for the health and safety of an
individual in the workplace. These strategies are covering various aspect of HSC. These
strategies might have positive as well as negative impact on the organisation. Department of
health has governed three policies in the UK. These are
1. Public health
2. National health
3. Social care
In the year 2011, the CMO of the UK has generated a new strategy for planning physical
exercise as they addressed a lifetime approach and made recommendations for the initial
year (Lloyd et al., 2018). Various government policies in the UK has been directed to
prevent the obesity which includes physical exercise, quit smoking and moderate use of
alcohol product, eating a nutritious or healthy diet. World health organisation has set the
range of defining obesity in the population. The UK government believe that health policies
are micro determined whereas, in reality, it is macro determined as it could lead to severe
diseases like diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular disease, etc (Lloyd et al., 2018).
The main aspect of safety and health measurement is a risk assessment procedure that may
have a great effect on HSC practice and service seekers. Risk assessment may be defined as
to identify the information regarding the risk associated with disease based on age, sex,
habit and weight of the patients. Risk assessment helps to identify the future susceptibility
of policies. It helps the organisation to assess the fund and strategic plan (Grossman, and
Reed, 2018).
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2.3
The health and safety policies in the UK not only give positive aspect but may also create
uncertainty and dilemmas. The dilemma may be defined as a condition in which we have to
choose one in between two or more option. In order to implement the policies and system
for safety and health, the NHS trust has faced some dilemma for a productive organisation
Preserving high technology
The NHS trust is auspicious in developing new policies and system in order to prevent and
treat the obese person (Fletcher et al, 2015). For this, the trust is introducing new and
advanced technologies like bariatric surgical procedure and ambulance with special vehicles.
Corruptions in the organisation
Health and safety care team are trying to improve the services and making new policies and
strategies for the safety of the people but due to corruption in the health worker or
inspector, they are not able to accomplish it. After taking bribes the inspector allows useless
or harmful product which may lead to unsafety of the people (Tuohy et al., 2015).
Public negligence
Sometimes the NHS trust would be in the dilemma that the new policies or strategies would
be work or not. However, this may lead to not implementing the new policies in the
organisation. As in the case of NHS trust, the doctors were in the dilemma that bariatric
surgery would be successful or not and hence this may lead to not executing the procedure.
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2.4
Non-compliance effect within the health and safety measure may be broadly divided into
two type
1. Personal non-compliance
2. Professional non-compliance
Personal non-compliance effect includes mortalities, injuries and health consequence
professional non-compliance effect include prosecution, discipline and fines (Boulware et
al., 2016). Public health act 1936 and mental health act 2007 are some of the act that may
help the organisation to regulate rules and strategies in their workplace. The non-
compliance effect of laws and policies may have a severe impact on the safety and health of
people. It may include patient dignity and privacy, a food safety measure, failure in risk
assessment and so on. It could affect the employers as well as the services seekers in the
HSC setting.
According to the law of health and safety act 1974, if the health care worker may found to
neglect his duty on not performing his duty then he could be prosecuted (Holt, and Allen,
2015). In health and safety measure, there are so many factors may be deal with
noncompliance experience. The trust could face lots of problems if the laws and legislation
are not cleared. The main factor that could make sense is the roles and responsibilities of a
health care professional.
If the NHS trust is noncompliance for the health, safety and security of the people then it
could safer for long as health and safety are important for any treatment planning. The
worker of safety and health measure should mention the professional competence to the
authorities because if any patient has died during procedure then authorities could take
legal action against him. If the NHS trust is become non-compliance to the laws in providing
care and treatment to an obese person, providing cheap bariatric surgery that could be a
disadvantage to the patients (Boyle, 2015). All this may lead to distorting the broad
building of the organisation and it may lead to the death of the patients.
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