UK Health and Social Care: Law, Policy, and Ethical Practice Analysis

This report delves into the legal, policy, and ethical dimensions of health and social care within the UK context. It examines the roles of the executive and judiciary in shaping the legal landscape, with a focus on legislation, statutory guidance, and codes of practice. The report explores how ethics informs healthcare practice, evaluating the national system of government and its impact on service delivery. It also analyzes the influence of national and international human rights law on fair treatment, the implementation of relevant legislation for safe conduct, and the importance of informing practitioners' rights and responsibilities. The report further investigates the relationship between law, policy, and ethics through a real-case scenario, explaining the impact of relevant laws and policies on outcomes and detailing how different considerations might lead to varied results, emphasizing the importance of currency and compliance through ethical practice. The report is a comprehensive overview of the legal and ethical framework that governs healthcare in the UK.

Law, Policy and Ethical
Practice in Health and
Social Care

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1 Process of executive and the judiciary set the legal and policy landscape for health and
social care practitioners..........................................................................................................1
P2 Summarise key features of legislation, statutory guidance, codes of practice.................3
M1 Detail of how ethics informs health, care and support service practice..........................4
D1 Evaluation of own national system of government in relation to its effect on health, care
and support service.................................................................................................................5
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
Covered in PPT.......................................................................................................................5
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................5
P5 How specific national and international human rights law influence and inform the equal
and fair treatment of others in health, care and support services...........................................5
P6 Implementation of different and relevant legislation and policy in regard to safe and
healthy conduct in own practice.............................................................................................6
M3 Importance in informing rights and responsibilities of health, care or support service
practitioners............................................................................................................................6
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................7
P7 Describe the relationship between law, policy and ethical requirements in relation to a real
case scenario in a health or care setting..................................................................................7
P8 Explain the impact of relevant law and policy on the outcome of a real case scenario....8
M4 Explain in detail how chosen law, policy and ethical considerations might result in
different outcomes to the case scenario taking into account unwarranted variation..............9
D3 Currency and compliance with relevant legislation and national policy through ethical
practice...................................................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10

REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Health and social care is one of the primary sector which is provided all the concern to
improve quality of life in each country. In the process of improving healthcare services UK is
termed as one of the most inspirational country where healthcare services are provided in
effective manner and to provide that services various laws and policies are formed. A nation
needs to make all possible actions by working together so that health and social care can be
maintained through following all the legal framework. Healthcare system in UK is designed in
such manner so that people form each background will be provided with required health facilities
to provide good life (Allotey and Reidpath, 2018). As health and social care industry affects
people at large so it is important to introduce law, policies and ethics to operate all the functions
in positive manner. In this relation various health and social care institutions takes part so that
more and more amount of individuals can be revived form critical conditions. In this project
report legal framework in health and social care practitioners operate with national and
organisational policy of fundamental importance. Laws in relation to ethical and professional
practice and application of laws is described in the project.
TASK 1
P1 Process of executive and the judiciary set the legal and policy landscape for health and social
care practitioners
Implication of various laws and set of legal policies are important to conduct various
clinical practices in lawful manner. Legislations, statutory guidance and code of practise supports
implementation of effective health and social care policies in equal manner all over UK.
Legislature is the governing body that leads to establishment of laws for governing health and
social care sector in UK. It is termed as law maker and considered as one of the branch of the
governing authorities in the country. Law making is a complex process so the legislative branch
of the government makes the law that are applicable in the land, the executive branch carries out
the law in the country and finally the judicial branch enforces or interprets the law. Combination
of these three terms helps in establishing the landscape for health and social care practitioner. As
they helps form establishment to execution and interpretation of the laws. Legal system helps to
support decisions in healthcare sector so that better results can be provided to patients. Formation
of laws and policies are affected through political scenario which is prevailing in UK (Bajpai,
1

2018). As government plays important role in formation and implementation of legal policies on
healthcare organisations. The process of establishing legal and policy landscape for health and
social care practitioners following steps are followed-
 In the process of creation of law through statute government of UK plays important role
as the whole policies and legal framework is designed by government officials those who
are involved in healthcare sector.
 A draft for new law and policy is established on the basis of analysis made in the
industry.
 This draft is presented to parliament so that decision can be taken to pass this draft as a
law or not.
 Both the houses after analysing all the scenario with royal consent will form laws in the
country.
This is the process of formation of new policies and legislation for healthcare
practitioners. Law of precedent is also applicable to set the legal and policy landscape. Precedent
is a principal or rule established in a case law that has held earlier (Banks, 2016). Results of the
case are binding in the process of deciding subsequent or similar case issues. So cases that held
earlier will also be a guideline in process to establish a legal framework. In the process of
establishing policies and effective legislation there are several reforms are introduced in the
healthcare industry in UK. These reforms attempts to broaden the population that receives
healthcare coverage either through public sector or private sector insurance programs. The
purpose for which reforms takes place was to increases number of insured individuals and to
increase quality of care while trying to stabilize or reduce cost.
Migration patten which is recorded in terms to enjoy medical services indicates that all
the individuals present in different areas needs to have access towards all the healthcare
facilities. Advancement of technology make each individual more informed regarding health
conditions and cure availability, keeping the records for number of patients which are not
provided healthcare services leads to become basis for reform (Barsky, 2019). Emergence of
more and more diseases leads government and healthcare industry to move forward to reforms
and make changes that are required to resolve several issues and to make change for better
future.
2

P2 Summarise key features of legislation, statutory guidance, codes of practice
Legislation is refereed to the preparation and enactment of laws by a legislative body
through a well established lawmaking process. It is an important instrument of government in
organising society and protecting citizens through establishing rights and responsibilities of
individuals and authorities to whom legislation applies. Some of the key features that a
legislation possess is that it is applicable to all the people in the country and all are equally
subjected to the laws of the country. All the individuals of the country are bound by the law
prevailing in the country. Parliament in UK plays following role-
 Legislation: As in UK all the laws that are implemented across the nation are formed by
the parliament. It is the supreme authority in the law making process.
 Representation: Parliament is formed with two houses one is house of commons and
other is house of Lords and both the houses acts on behalf of voters and citizens who
voted for them (Beckett, Maynard and Jordan, 2017).
 Scrutiny: Government in UK is examined by parliament for their actions and activities.
This leads to generation of effective governance in the country as all the government
departments works efficiently.
 Parliament also leads to formation of government so that implementation of law can be
made in effective manner.
Legislation of UK is available with some of the key features are as follows-
 Law making is one of the important feature that legislations possess.
 It also involved in the process of controlling over budgets for different sectors in the
economy.
 Legislations helps in ensuring performance of some of the Judicial activities.
Statutory guidance means a code or guidance issued by the authority under an act that
makes provision in relation to performance of particular duty. In UK health and social care
services are governed as per care act.
National policies are defined as follows-
Care Act 2014: Through this act in UK legal framework is established for care
professionals and local health care practitioner so that common people can be protected with risk
of abuse and negligence in care services. In this act all the rules and regulations that are
implemented in healthcare sector to service provider and to patients all are included. Guidance is
3

made in relation to summarising high amount of care setting goals and making all the efforts to
achieve them.
Health & Social Act 2012: Through this act instructions and guidelines are provided to
care practitioners for providing healthcare services to all the individuals who are in requirement.
Through this act al the efforts are made for improving effective care of patients so goals of safety
can be achieved (Huang, 2018).
Code of practice: It is a set of written rules and regulations which explains the working
scenario of professionals working in the health and social care industry. A code of practice is
mentioned regarding behaviour of practitioners and how to deal with different situations when
they arise. Ethical principals including behaviour at workplace, honesty, unbiased work
environment is introduced. Code of practice for medical professionals are as-
 Maintain respect and dignity of patients while treating them.
 No discrimination is made among patients and all of them are provided access to equal
treatment opportunity.
 Honest and reliable information must be provided to patients so that no manipulation can
be made.
 All the individual rights must be known so that each individual can be protected for any
kind of heal abuse while receiving treatment.
M1 Detail of how ethics informs health, care and support service practice
In healthcare practices moral complexities exists in every day operations with creating
conflicts responsibilities in providing healthcare services. Healthcare ethics are applied on
practical situation and behaviour that leads to focuses on benefit of user is followed. For
example- in recent times it is seen that individuals who are non related to any patients are keen to
acquire information in relation to unrelated person. In this care ethics in healthcare profession
supports the situation and do not allow any medical practitioner to provide information of any
patient to other without prior consent (Jacob, Decker and Lugg, 2016). Ethics provides the full
description of good practice that each individual in the health and social care needs to be
considered while providing various services.
4

D1 Evaluation of own national system of government in relation to its effect on health, care and
support service
Government of a nation plays important in order to implement and achieve success for
healthcare practices and policies. UK is one of the well known country in which effective
healthcare service facility system is developed and implemented in productive manner. In UK
NHS is one of the largest public healthcare organisation through which all the rules and
regulations of the government are implemented in the industry. All the policies that helps in
achieving objectives of healthcare sector will be implemented as per regulations made and
imposed by government. For example- as per national system of government no practitioner is
allowed to disclose details of their patients. This regulations are implemented by NHS through
designing some strict rules and regulations so that no manipulations can be performed.
TASK 2
Covered in PPT
TASK 3
P5 How specific national and international human rights law influence and inform the equal and
fair treatment of others in health, care and support services
I was employed in Airdri organisation last year and I use to supervise a team of 20
employees who was involved in manufacturing. One of the accident that takes place in from of
me was with my team member. He was injured with machine breakdown in between. At the time
of injury as per laws and regulations mentioned in companies books we called a ambulance.
Ambulance was their on time and he was taken to hospital. I was their with him in ambulance
and when we reached hospital doctors doctor was available to provide necessary treatment as all
the information was provided to doctor on call. In that hospital he was provided with all medical
services and treatment was provided priority then filling forms and waiting to make a report. As
per law any accident took place at business premises then it is duty of employer to pay bill at
hospital and process of recovery may vary for each institute. Airdri made all the payments of
medical bill and this leads make the organisation a law abiding company. Here National Health
Service Injury Benefit will be available. Implication of Care Standards Act, 2000 and
Community care Direct Payment Act, 1996 is implied so that human rights of equality at national
and international level can be maintained.
5

In this case it is seen that legislations that are implemented in terms of medical industry
are followed to a great extend. As equity law is provided to each individual for treatment on time
and despite of being an employee all the medical care services are provided to injured person and
no discrimination was made. As per law each individual possess right to treatment on time and
this law was also effectively complied in this case (Keown, 2018). Care act is followed in this
case through taking all the possible steps for providing services on time and risk of neglect is
taken into consideration. Laws in relation to human rights made at national and international
level leads to provide faire treatment to each employees in medical industry.
P6 Implementation of different and relevant legislation and policy in regard to safe and healthy
conduct in own practice
In relation to introduce safe and healthy conduct of practices in health and social care
industry several laws and policies are followed and some of them are as follows-
Health and Social Care Act, 2012: This act in the healthcare sector provides duties to
organisations and medical practitioner to generate equality among medical practice and treatment
to each individual. Through this act local authorities takes charge in order to introduce more and
more amount of equality in public health functions so no individual is deprived form good
healthcare facilities (Lipschultz, 2017). This will be used in general practice through providing
equal opportunities to each patient to get fair treatment.
Social value Act, 2012: This act requires public sector commissioners including local
authorities and healthcare bodies to consider economic, social and environmental well-being
while providing their services. Creating good social value has a direct connection with
minimising inequality in health area. For example- providing more and more employment and
housing.
Implementing patients care policy for effective services and providing all the services in
legal manner determined by various laws and policies that are implemented at international level.
M3 Importance in informing rights and responsibilities of health, care or support service
practitioners
Healthcare industry is growing and changing its scenario as the growth and development
is taking place outside this industry. In order to make effective services by medical practitioner
laws are implemented that establish a policies in relation to right to information of practitioners.
Medical service provides need to be well informed regarding changes in policies and laws takes
6

place in order to make their services effective. Together with this it will help to minimise
chances to breach any law that is necessary to be followed (Mannheimer, Young and Rossmann,
2016). As new Health and Social Care Standards came into effect in April 2018 and they are
focused on regulating care settings and together with this use of social care is made a priority.
New childcare, children's services, health provision and community justice leads to set some new
standards.
TASK 4
P7 Describe the relationship between law, policy and ethical requirements in relation to a real
case scenario in a health or care setting.
Law, policy and ethical requirement plays the crucial roles within any of the sector it is
the only way which can be helpful for the purpose of accomplishing the goals. It is said that all
of the three (law, policy and ethical requirements) are connected with each other as if any of the
person fails to perform any of the one then legal actions can be taken which can create lots of
problem. Below, a real case scenario have been mentioned (Mittelstadt and Floridi, 2016).
Case Scenario: In National Heath Service of UK, they are unable to give fair treatment
to each and every patient who are present within the premises of a hospital. The main problem
which can be found within the NHS is that their senior doctors do no entertain each and every
cases as they want their subordinates or juniors to take the charge of those cases which are not
critical in nature. It is one of the reason that the patients are trying to explain that NHS is not
fulfilling each and every requirement towards their patient due to which they are being suffered
where they want that hospital must perform their duty as per the requirement of law, policy and
ethical duties. In addition they are unable to keep all of the requirement safe and secured which
is creating a huge problem for some of the patient.
As per the above mentioned it is needed to be understand that various laws and
regulations applies upon the business organization which simply explains that all rules are
needed to be followed in each and every situation so that goals can be accomplished. The legal
laws and regulations says that it is the responsibilities of NHS they must treat each and every
patient as per the requirement of their health condition because if in any of the condition they
fails then it can create huge problem in future period of time (O'Loughlin and O'Loughlin, 2016).
7

Talking about the law, this are commenced by the legislative body of the government
which are explains that what are those law and regulations which are imposed upon any of the
particular sector. For example: In heath sector, the laws and regulations which are being imposed
is Fair Treatment Act, Heath and Social Care Act 2012, Health Act 2006 Care Act 2015, Care
Standards Act 2000 and many more. This are some of the laws which must be considered by the
NHS. In the second phase, it can be said that policies are needed to be formed and that policies
should be in consideration to legal laws and regulations which will allow organisation to perform
their task easily. For example: Whenever NHS is preparing the policies, they are needed to think
that their policies should be related with law where they treat every patient equally, all of the
doctors will use the best safety equipment which will uplift the standard of health of patient.
Finally, talking about the Ethical values, this has a direct relation with laws and policies because
it simply explains that every patient must be treaty equally. Even ethics says that patient are
needed to be given equal importance. The ethics says that way to dealing with any of the patient
must be polite as it will allow them to recover in short period of time (Orthwein, 2017).
In short, above explanations can help to understand that law, policies and ethics are
interrelated which must be followed by every sector and if in any of the situation it is not being
considered then huge problem can be created which will not allow to accomplish the goals on
specific time period.
P8 Explain the impact of relevant law and policy on the outcome of a real case scenario
Whenever in any of the situation law and regulations are being followed in a systematic
manner their will be huge chances that positive results can be obtained. As in the above
mentioned scenario, it was found that all of the patient where not being treated equally due to
which patient where facing lots of problem while having the treatment within the NHS. But, if
proper laws and regulations will be formed then there will higher possibilities that better
outcomes can be achieved.
Laws like Heath Act 2006, Heath and Social Care Act will give the guidelines that how
doctors are needed to treat their patient and what are their primary responsibilities towards them
(Porche, 2017). As people are facing the problem while having the treatment within the NHS
will be solved as there will be very less probability that doctor will not give focus to patient. In
addition, doctor will be able to make those plans and policies which where patient of any
category will be given the equal importance due to which their recovery will be completed
8

within the short period of time. The policies will be able to explain that what are the
responsibilities of doctors and other staffs working in the premisses of a hospital. Also, policies
will clarify that what are the decision which can be taken in the emergency situation because
there will be some of the situation where doctor will be required to give more importance to
those patient who are in critical condition as compared to those patient who can recover in
shorter period of time (Wheeler and Bertram, 2019). In short, law and policies will allow the
NHS to uplift the standard where each and every patient will be treated equally and their problem
and complain will not be raised again.
M4 Explain in detail how chosen law, policy and ethical considerations might result in different
outcomes to the case scenario taking into account unwarranted variation.
There are number of law like Care Act 2015, Health and Social care Act 2012, Care
Standards Act 2000, Health and Social Care Act 2008 and many more can play the crucial role in
bring out the positive outcomes. It is needed to be understand that if this laws and regulations are
not commenced then result might have been different where patient might have to suffer more. It
can be said that the chosen laws, policies and ethics will allow to develop the concept in which
all of the patient will be given equal importance. Even it social awareness can be created which
will guide that how any of the healthcare should treat their patient in any of the situation and
which types of patient must be given more importance (Wolf, 2019). All the set laws and policies
in the health and social care industry may leads in the generation of different outcomes because
application of these policies and laws may differs and variations can be recorded.
D3 Currency and compliance with relevant legislation and national policy through ethical
practice
As a care and support service provider an individual needs to earn desired currency while
complying with relevant legislation's and national policies. In this process all the services needs
to be provided following laws and policies so that any legal compliance can be avoided.
Following law and ethical practices helps in generating goodwill and in long run it will help in
establish a name of a particular individual in medical industry. Trust of patients will increases
which leads to generation of more and more patients and in long run desired amount of profits
will be achieved. Health, care and support service practitioner through following all the national
policies and ethical legislation ensures good practices. As this will help to generate good
revenues in future through a established name for good and ethical practices.
9

CONCLUSION
From the above project report it has been concluded that health and social care services
are one of the important part of an economy to generate good life. In order to introduce effective
healthcare practices in the nation number of laws, ethics and practices needs to be implemented.
Equity act, Anti discrimination act and heal and safety act are identified and implemented on
healthcare industry in order to generate effective legal framework. Adaptation of legal system
and following all the laws and policies generate good public image of medical practitioner.
National policies helps in determining laws in relation to healthcare industry and applicable to all
medical practitioner equally. Laws, policies and ethical practices will help in governing health
and social care sector in effective manner to achieve targeted goals.
10

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Allotey, P. and Reidpath, D. eds., 2018. The health of refugees: public health perspectives from
crisis to settlement. Oxford University Press.
Bajpai, A., 2018. Child rights in India: Law, policy, and practice. Oxford University Press.
Banks, S., 2016. Everyday ethics in professional life: Social work as ethics work. Ethics and
Social Welfare. 10(1). pp.35-52.
Barsky, A. E., 2019. Ethics and values in social work: An integrated approach for a
comprehensive curriculum. Oxford University Press.
Beckett, C., Maynard, A. and Jordan, P., 2017. Values and ethics in social work. Sage.
Huang, P. H., 2018. Happiness 101 for legal scholars: applying happiness research to legal
policy, ethics, mindfulness, negotiations, legal education, and legal practice. Research
Handbook on Behavioral Law and Economics. pp.271-93.
Jacob, S., Decker, D. M. and Lugg, E. T., 2016. Ethics and law for school psychologists. John
Wiley & Sons.
Keown, J., 2018. Euthanasia, ethics and public policy: an argument against legalisation.
Cambridge University Press.
Lipschultz, J. H., 2017. Social media communication: Concepts, practices, data, law and ethics.
Routledge.
Mannheimer, S., Young, S. W. and Rossmann, D., 2016. On the ethics of social network
research in libraries. Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society.
14(2). pp.139-151.
Mittelstadt, B. D. and Floridi, L. eds., 2016. The ethics of biomedical big data (Vol. 29).
Springer.
O'Loughlin, M. and O'Loughlin, S., 2016. Social work with children and families. Learning
Matters.
Orthwein, W. C., 2017. Psychiatric and mental health nursing: The craft of caring. CRC Press.
Porche, D. J., 2017. Health Policy. Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Wheeler, A. M. and Bertram, B., 2019. The counselor and the law: A guide to legal and ethical
practice. John Wiley & Sons.
Wolf, Z. R., 2019. The Right to a Caring Relationship.
11