Health and Safety in the Workplace: Risk Assessment, Policy Impact

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of health and safety in the workplace, focusing on risk assessment, the impact of health and safety policies on health and social care practice, and the dilemmas encountered in implementing systems and policies for health, safety, and security. It examines how information from risk assessments informs care planning and organizational decision-making, using examples such as the availability of first aid equipment and workplace hygiene. The report also discusses how dilemmas related to corruption, technology advancement, public negligence, and supply chain risks can be addressed through observation, communication, and leadership. Furthermore, it explores the effects of non-compliance with health and safety legislation, emphasizing the importance of employee awareness and training to avoid negative impacts on staff, patients, and organizational goals.

Health and Safety in the
Workplace
1

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................4
2.1 Analyse how information from risk assessments informs care planning for individuals and
organisational decision making about policies and procedures...................................................4
2.2 Analyse the impact of one aspect of health and safety policy on health and social care
practice and its customers............................................................................................................6
2.3 Discuss how dilemmas encountered in relation to implementing systems and policies for
health, safety and security may be addressed..............................................................................8
2.4 Effects of non-compliance experience in relation to health and safety legislation in the
workplace...................................................................................................................................10
D1: Use critical reflection to evaluate own work and justify valid conclusions.......................11
References......................................................................................................................................12
2

LIST OF TABLE
Table 1: Risk Assessment................................................................................................................5
3

Task 2
2.1 Analyse how information from risk assessments informs care planning for individuals and
organisational decision making about policies and procedures.
Risk management is the process to gain information related to risk in an individual on the basis
of age of patient, position of disease, vulnerability, weight, etc. It generally refers to determining
of hazards, harm caused from hazards, measuring level of risk, monitoring of risk factors, as well
as controlling of risk factors.
Positive impacts of risk assessment have been identified in informing individuals about care
planning of suffering patients (Loeppke et.al.2015). The process helps an individual to make
familiar with possible risk factors that are associated with social and health care organizations
like NHS and along with this, it will impact the decision making related to policies and
procedures of social care organizations. New systems and procedures in an organization will lead
business to get familiar with actual issues and problems.
The major advantage of risk assessment is to support social care organizations to understand the
issues they are currently facing. It supports decision making for an individual as well as for an
organization. Information related to risk assessment will reduce the identified risk to the
healthcare staff, service users as well as other members of public. In addition to this, it will also
enable an organization to efficiently develop and maintain health and safety environment at the
workplace. The process also facilitates an organization to compare existing standards with actual
standards so that further improvements can be implemented. Monitoring and reviewing can be
controlled by improving the planning process of an organization.
Risk assessment highly impacts the security measures in social care organization in NHS.
Appropriate need of security must be identified so that machineries and equipments can be
installed accordingly to minimise the security threats at the workplace. Risk assessment process
must be conducted by following the international standards as well as various changes in policies
must be implemented if existing policies are not aligned with the set international standards
(Powers, 2017). Decision making related to policies must be result oriented so that individuals
related to health and social care must gain benefits from these policies.
4

Table 1: Risk Assessment
Description of
severity
Very likely
(Could occur any
time)
Likely
(could occur
sometime)
Unlikely
(occurs very
rarely)
Very Unlikely
(Possibly never)
Kill or cause
permanent illness
1 1 2 2
Long term injury 1 2 3 4
Large number of
days off work or
medical attention
2 2 3 4
Need of first aid 4 5 6 6
From the above risk assessment in social and health care organization, it can be concluded that
individuals as well as an organization must alter their caring policies to minimise death as well as
permanent disabilities. Employees must focus on intensify their working effectiveness and
expand their duty time to minimise risk factors. For an instance, information collected from risk
assessment indicates that patients in health care needs long term treatment, and then it is their
responsibility to hire more medical professionals and must focus on expanding their due days.
5

2.2 Analyse the impact of one aspect of health and safety policy on health and social care
practice and its customers.
There are various health and safety policies in health and social care workplace. Different
policies cover different aspects of health and social care which puts both positive as well as
negative impact on health practices as well as its customers. One of the major aspects of health
and safety policy on health and social care practices is to make sure that there is availability of
first aid equipments at the workplace as well as employees and practitioners must be aware about
its arrangement as per the Health and Safety Regulation 1981 (Hale et.al.2015).
Health and social care providers and seekers identified the positive impact of policies. The
regulations are strictly followed by reputed social cares like NHS which further led to promote
the health and safety of patients as well as enhance the effectiveness of employees working in an
organization. To meet the desired outcomes, it is the responsibility of management to organise
training sessions to motivate employees to fulfil the first aid requirement of patients on regular
basis. Under the Act, employer makes sure the wellbeing of service users with the help of
efficient first aid equipments. Health and safety policies not only put positive impact on
employees of health and social care as well as service users.
The most important aspect in health and social care organization is hygiene and cleanliness of
the workplace. These factors highly influence the security level for both employees and patients
and employer ensures the security level at large scale. It is essential to ensure the cleanliness and
hygiene of working environment as dirtiness will spread bacteria at the workplace which is
harmful for both staff and service users of social and health care organization (Finkel et.al.2018).
For an instance, it has been observed in many of the social care organizations that negligence in
cleanliness has put heavy negative impact on health of patients as well as people in surroundings.
And therefore, cleanliness and hygiene must be on top consideration on organizational policies.
Along with the cleanliness hygiene of internal and external surroundings is the responsibility of
management at social and health care organizations like NHS. Chances of infections are high in
operation theatres and therefore, various cleaning equipments and dispensers must be used to
clean the surroundings after the process of operation to minimise risk of infection (Shea
6

et.al.2016). Along with the patients, such infections also cause harm to nursing staff and doctors
of an organization and pots negative impact on their health.
However by observing the current trend in health industry, various measures and processes have
been adopted to maintain the cleanliness and hygiene of environment at workplace. It includes
washing facilities, hand wash, laundry and many more so that spreading of infection can be
minimised or finished on immediate basis. In addition to usage of cleaning equipments and
liquids, dumping of used and waste material will be an added advantage to maintain the
cleanliness of surroundings and this must be followed as per the instruction of senior
management or government authorities.
7

2.3 Discuss how dilemmas encountered in relation to implementing systems and policies for
health, safety and security may be addressed.
Many a times organization face issues in situations where they have to make decision or choose
between two situations which are equally important and beneficial for social and health care
organizations. Such situations are referred to as dilemmas where it becomes difficult for an
individual or an organization to take decision (Rodríguez-Jareño et.al.2015). With context to
health and social care organization, clashes occur between ethical values as well as
organizational policies. In such situation, employees have to choose between the ethical values
of the workplace as well as well being of patients. Such situation is known as ethical dilemma
where ethical values are considered by using the information gained from risk assessment.
Various social and health care organizations like NHS face such situations and current task will
explain about the dilemmas with context to implementation of health, safety and security policies
because of reasons below:
Increased Corruption: Healthcare organizations like NHS for its betterment implement various
procedures and policies but there exists some internal and external officials who restrict the
implementation in effective manner. An internal bribe offered by higher officials to workers at
lower position to degrade the quality of products and services is an example of corruption. Bribes
allow the officials to sell low quality of products which directly harm the health of patients or
lower down the process of improvement.
Advancement in Technology: For the development of an organization as well as betterment of
patients in health care organizations, various advanced technology for their treatment have been
implemented now days. Advancement in technology comes with lot of other expenses that
includes training of staff, installation expenses as major one of them is tax expenses which are
very high. Dilemma occurs in such situations where owner have to choose between the
betterment of social care of public or cost benefits of an organization (Lacey et.al.2015).
Enhancement in technology not only benefits the organization but new advanced health care
equipments will be an added advantage for the health of patients.
Negligence of Public: Health care organizations like NHS face dilemmas in context to
implementation of policies and practices. However there are many practices which are
8

implemented or conducted with the support of public. Negligence as well as slackness in their
behaviour creates obstacle to implement such policies related to health and safety at the
workplace. For an instance, creating dirtiness and unhygienic conditions in the surroundings and
society restrict organization to align policies of an organization with Cleanliness Acts by the
government.
Increased risk in supply chain: As discussed above corruption is the major factor that increases
the risk of accidents and mishaps because of low quality of first aid instruments and equipments.
Healthcare organizations follow various safety and health procedures to ensure the safety of staff
and service users at the workplace but third party suppliers with their bad quality of supplies
makes workplace unsafe both for staff and patients.
All the above explained dilemmas can be addressed by closely observing the activities of
officials and taking tactical decisions as per the laws. Activities of higher officials as well as
lower positioned workers can be observed by installing hidden cameras at the workplace which
helps to identify the individuals who are nit working as per the laws and ethically in an
organization. Such people who are restricting to implement the policies in an efficient manner
must be warned or legal actions must be taken against them. Effective communication will also
help to make them understand about the importance of safety and security policies. Leadership
skills can also motivate them to eliminate such wrong practices and encourage them to follow the
procedures for the welfare of society.
9

2.4 Effects of non-compliance experience in relation to health and safety legislation in the
workplace.
There are various factors faced by health care organization that are associated to the non
compliance experience in context to health and safety legislation at the workplace. If the
procedures are not in compliance with health and safety legislation, then it will put negative
impact on both staff and patients (Matthews, 2016). Therefore, it is important to make employees
aware about various health and safety legislation laws through training process so that various
procedures can be aligned as per the need of an organization. Major problem comes with less
understanding of legislations which highly impact the decision making of employees in an
organization in an effective manner.
Non compliance in context to health and safety legislation will lower down the integration of
employees and puts negative impact on benefits of organization. In addition to this, conflicts will
arise among the team members and constant confusions will make the situation adverse. This
will further impact the productivity and efficiency of employees in negative manner. Non
compliance will develop irresponsible attitude among the staff of social and health care
organization which will restrict an entity to achieve desired goals and objectives. The major
impact will be on goodwill of the social care home and will highly impact negatively on trust of
people in society (Palese and Dobrowolska, 2017).
10

D1: Use critical reflection to evaluate own work and justify valid conclusions
Risk assessment plays an important role in identifying the risk factors and therefore, being in the
core committee, I have highly focused on understanding hazardous situations in an organization.
I regularly analysed the situations on how and who are being affected by hazardous elements and
take control measures to minimise the risks that are highly affecting not only the service users
but also the management and staff of an organization. Risk Assessment helped me to minimise
the issues which directly put positive impact on health of patients which was seen in their fast
recovery.
Other than risk assessment I tried to align the legislation related with health and safety to the
practices and procedures in an organization (Liu, 2018). I focused on maintaining the cleanliness
and hygiene of the surroundings by making sure that proper sanitation and equipments have been
utilised. Availability of first aid equipments was checked on priority which helps to serve
patients as well as staff in an efficient manner.
11

References
Books and Journals
Finkel, A.M., Deubert, C., Lobel, O., Cohen, I.G. and Lynch, H.F., 2018. The NFL as a
workplace: The prospect of applying occupational health and safety law to protect NFL workers.
Hale, A., Borys, D. and Adams, M., 2015. Safety regulation: the lessons of workplace safety rule
management for managing the regulatory burden. Safety science, 71, pp.112-122.
Lacey, R., Kennett-Hensel, P.A. and Manolis, C., 2015. Is corporate social responsibility a
motivator or hygiene factor? Insights into its bivalent nature. Journal of the Academy of
Marketing Science, 43(3), pp.315-332.
Liu, K., 2018. Regulating Occupational Health and Safety in EU and China: From a Comparative
Law Perspective. In Employment Protection Legislation in Emerging Economies(pp. 48-76). IGI
Global.
Loeppke, R.R., Hohn, T., Baase, C., Bunn, W.B., Burton, W.N., Eisenberg, B.S., Ennis, T.,
Fabius, R., Hawkins, R.J., Hudson, T.W. and Hymel, P.A., 2015. Integrating health and safety in
the workplace: how closely aligning health and safety strategies can yield measurable
benefits. Journal of occupational and environmental medicine, 57(5), pp.585-597.
Matthews, S., 2016. Surgical Plume and Health and Safety Legislation. The Dissector, 43(4),
p.21.
Palese, A. and Dobrowolska, B., 2017. Adherence to European Union health and safety
legislation requires that the minimum length of nursing programmes leading to registration
should be increased. International journal of nursing studies, 69, pp.A1-A3.
Powers, H., 2017. BULLIES AMONG US: Dealing with Workplace Violence in Health
Care. Canadian Journal of Medical Laboratory Science, 79(4), pp.21-24.
Rodríguez-Jareño, M.C., Molinero, E., de Montserrat, J., Vallès, A. and Aymerich, M., 2015.
How much do workers’ health examinations add to health and safety at the workplace?
12

Occupational preventive usefulness of routine health examinations. Gaceta sanitaria, 29(4),
pp.266-273.
Shea, T., De Cieri, H., Donohue, R., Cooper, B. and Sheehan, C., 2016. Leading indicators of
occupational health and safety: An employee and workplace level validation study. Safety
science, 85, pp.293-304.
13