Legal Framework: Health and Social Care Practitioners, UK, Semester 1

This report provides a comprehensive overview of the legal framework governing health and social care in the UK. It explores the roles of the legislature, judiciary, and executive in developing policies, laws, and standards for healthcare practitioners. The report details key legislation, including the Health and Social Care Act and the Care Act, and analyzes the relationship between key legislation and national policies. It examines the impact of organizational and national policies and standards on health and social care services, highlighting the importance of frameworks like CQC. Furthermore, the report discusses the influence of human rights laws, ethical considerations, and the relationship between ethics, policy, and law in healthcare scenarios. The conclusion summarizes the importance of a robust legal and ethical framework to ensure quality healthcare delivery and protect patient rights.

LEGAL FRAMEWORK

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
LO 1.................................................................................................................................................3
Role of legislature, Judiciary and executive in developing legal and policy landscape for health
and social care practitioners.........................................................................................................3
Summarisation of some key features...........................................................................................4
LO 2.................................................................................................................................................5
Relationship between key legislation and national policy...........................................................5
Impact of Organisational and National Policies and Standards on Health and Social Care
Services........................................................................................................................................6
LO 3.................................................................................................................................................8
Influence of Human Rights Laws on the Fair Treatment of Patients in Healthcare Industries...8
Relevant Legislations and Policies with Respect to Healthy and Safe Healthcare Conduct.......9
LO 4...............................................................................................................................................10
Relationship Between Ethics, Policy and Laws in Healthcare Scenario...................................10
Impact of Relevant Law and Policy on Outcome of Healthcare Scenario................................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Health care services are essential to maintain and improve the physical and mental health of
a given population in any country around the world. As human being are imperfect creatures
prone to diseases and injuries, the quality of healthcare a country can provide has a direct effect
on the quality of life of the population living in the country (Chiarini, Opoku and Vagnoni,
2017). As healthcare services play such an important role in the society, there are in place
multiple national, organisational and legal policies, frameworks and standards to regulate the
quality of health care that is provided to citizens in order to ensure its effectiveness and
efficiency in helping the patients.
MAIN BODY
LO 1
Role of legislature, Judiciary and executive in developing legal and policy landscape for health
and social care practitioners.
In the UK’s system, various sources of law that are used in order to develop and implement
policies are Statutes, Common Law and Law from EU (Alderwick and et.al., 2019). All the three
aspects of governance i.e. legislative, executive and judiciary are closely interlinked to develop
correct policies for the healthcare sector. The statute signifies the legislation that has been
developed by the parliament of UK and Common law is the law that has been developed over the
cases that are fought in the court. The legislation basically is statutory law that is developed by
the governing body s that the there can be proper regulations and authority to either declare or
restrict any particular decision. Legislation is basically the principles that have been developed to
increase the safety of the public and reduce injustice or unethical aspects in the society.
The Judiciary system on the other hand finds is courts and tribunals (Jang, Lee and Heo,
2019). Case laws are normally included here in the judiciary system that can further assist the
legislations in implementation of better laws and policies for the protection of the health and
social care practitioners in UK. Executives are also a part of the system which includes the local
authorities, trusts etc. who are continuously working for the betterment of such workers. They
have developed various trusts at local level i.e. getting the women right to vote, stopping female
genital mutilation developing pension schemes etc. are the practices that have been adopted to
support such health and social care workers. The executive department has the right to develop
regulations for them. Regulations are mainly developed by cabinets or certain branches of
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government (Suetens and et.al., 2018). Standards on the other hand are the manner in which
certain things are to be performed in a specific manner. These are the guidelines which are to be
followed by the health care professional at all times in order to ensure that their work in
conducted in a standardised and approved manner. These are also developed for the workers in
health and social care sector and effectively contribute in better management.
Integration of all the three departments has proved beneficial for the health and social care
employees where they have been able to conform to a set of standards measuring the quality of
work that they are performing and are also given additional benefits through the implementation
of various laws. These laws protect their rights in many aspects and help the workers in
compensating for the duty that they are bound to perform. For the Health and social care
practitioners, the legislation of UK has made various laws such as NHS England confidentiality
policy, Workplace health and safety etc. (Fortenberry Jr and McGoldrick, 2016). There are
various standards as well that are implemented in through CQC i.e. care quality commission in
UK. Therefore, the role of all the three parties in developing correct policies, rules, laws and
standards for the health and social care workers was discussed and presented.
Summarisation of some key features
The laws and policies are usually developed so that they can help in increasing the order and
discipline. This includes the legislations and regulations that have been developed, the codes of
practice, national policies and international policies as well.
The key features of regulations for health and social care workers are that they need to
comply to the statutory instrument where the ay new act or provision that is implemented has to
be followed clearly (Akther and et.al., 2019). There is however a critical role that is played by
the features of such legislative instruments and this can be illustrated as follows:
 Green Paper: These are simply just consultation documents that are prepared by the
government and are normally prepared when the people of the parliament decide to give
feedbacks to a particular department regarding the policies that they have developed. These
are not part of the law making but rather an after law development thing.
 White Paper: White paper is the report that is more authoritative and is basically a statement
of government policies where the intention of the government to pass a law is signified here.
Collectively both white and green paper forms a basis of bill representation in the parliament.
The bill thus presented is discussed and debated and only when it has been approved by both the
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houses, i.e. in House of Commons and in House of Lords, it gets passed (Levin and Carson,
2019). This passed bill is then presented before the Queen and after the royal assent is obtained,
the bill finally becomes the law.
The code of conduct is a body that has developed a set of standards that all adult health and
social care workers need to adopted and follow. It covers all the aspects such as the attitude or
behaviour that these people should have towards their patients or clients, the work environment
that they should provide, care and support that is expected by them etc. Although it is voluntary
or optional for the care takers to follow the code of conduct that has been developed for them,
but when it is complied, it is seen as an added benefit or as a sign of best practice where the
carers who adopt such practices are treated as better care takers than the rest of them. The key
feature of code of conduct that is followed by employees of NHS includes:
 Being accountable for all the actions that have been performed by the care takers (Rodríguez
and et.al., 2019). They must be answerable for every action that they are undertaking.
 They must uphold and promote the privacy, rights, dignity and health of all the patients who
are seeking care from such health and social care practitioners.
 The collaboration and communication between the care takers and their colleagues must be
clear, precise and accurate where all the details are shared immaculately. Also, the
communication with patients should also be open as this act as a gateway for understanding
the patient and giving them better care.
 The confidentiality of the patient must not be compromised at any cost and the healthcare
environment must be continuously improved fir further betterment (Viegas and et.al., 2019).
This involves use of latest equipments but also involves employee well being and cultural
diversity.
LO 2
Relationship between key legislation and national policy
The healthcare sector has always been one of the most prominent sectors for the government
of UK and they have always constantly made laws or legislation that have helped in increasing
the quality of services that are being provided by the employees of this sector. There are various
legislation policies as well as national policies that help in bridging up the gap but a few of them
are similar in the terms of healthcare practices.
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There are many legislations such as Health and Social Care Act, 2008 or the Care Act, 2014 or
the Health and safety as Work Act, 1974. Similarly there are various national policies as well
such as Health and Social care Reform Act, 2009 developed by Northern Ireland or the NHS Act.
2006or the Employment Mental Health Act, 1983 (Jang, Lee and Heo, 2019). These are similar
legislations and the major aim here is to serve the people that are working in the health and social
care sector in UK. These collectively help in ensuring that the work environment in which such
professional are working and the care practices that they are adopted. While the legislation is
applicable in the entre UK, a nation specific or area specific law is covered under national
legislation. This is the major relationship that is shared between both the types of legislation.
However, this is no longer applicable after there were certain reforms in the constitution. When
the constitutional reform Act was launched in 2005, the Lord Chancellor was no longer given the
power as head of the judiciary and the president of courts of England and Wales became head.
Additionally, there was a formulation of judicial appointment committee that was solely
responsible for the appointments. This has impacted the law making where the territory of
England and Wales is treated as similar now. The country can however adopt and implement the
laws that were implemented before the introduction of this reform (Alderwick and et.al., 2019).
Therefore, it can be said that the relationship between key legislations and national policies is
that of superior subordinate where the key legislations rules overpower of govern the rules made
by the national legislators. Further, the authority to make legislations now lies with one person
only thus ending the differentiation that exists between the policies developed. The key
legislative policies are executed throughout UK and the national policies can be implemented
only in the relevant area that is governed.
Impact of Organisational and National Policies and Standards on Health and Social Care
Services
As health and social care serviceshave become such an essential part of a well-
functioning society, with respect to maintaining and improving the health and safety of its
citizens, there have been implemented various policies and standards by national and
organisational authorities to regulate the quality and type of healthcare services that are provided
to the citizens of their population. This is done so that there are no accidents or mishaps
occurring due to negligence on part of the healthcare providers and professionals in their attempt
to provide effective healthcare to their patients and effectively cure them of whichever disease or
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ailment affects them. Though through the ages, human beings who provide healthcare services to
patients have know the do’s and don’ts of the healthcare industries, it is essential to have national
and organisational policies and healthcare standards that can effectively control and coordinate
the methods used by healthcare providers and professionals to ensure the patients being taken
care of are properly and are being administered the kind of healthcare which is relevant to their
condition, adhering to organisational and national policies and standards in order to effectively
and efficiently cure them as fast as possible.
Organisational and national policies have had a massive impact on the methods and
practices used by healthcare professionals in the National Healthcare Services (NHS) of UK in
their efforts to provide effective healthcare to their patients. These policies are essential as they
provide healthcare professionals with a set plan of action to guide their healthcare efforts in
providing effective healthcare to patients, and helps, expedites their decision-making processesso
that healthcare can be provided to patients in a fast and efficient manner (Weller and et.al.,
2019). Contrastingly, as new laws and policies are constantly being implemented, changed or
updated such as the numerous changes to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), to healthcare
industries, they have an immense impact on the healthcare providers as they first have to be
effectively communicated to every healthcare professional and employee and managing them
can also become an arduous task for the healthcare management.
Healthcare standards also have an immense impact on the operations and healthcare
methods used by professional to provide effective healthcare to their patients, but these standards
are set in order to make sure that the patient rights are not infringed upon and their healthcare can
be provided in a effective and efficient manner by the healthcare establishments. These standards
also ensure that the patients are provided the same level of healthcare across different
establishments as they all operate to serve the public (Hervey, 2018). There are various standards
in health care such as patient safety, privacy, medications used etc, all of which impact the ways
in which healthcare professionals interact with their patients and provide effective healthcare.
The Continuity of Care Record (CCR) healthcare standard impacts the operations of
professionals as they all have to adhere to the standards so that any healthcare record made them
for a patient can be further accessed by other healthcare professional in the future in their quest
to provide healthcare to the same patient across different healthcare establishments. Consent
standards also mandate that the patient must be aware of the details of their treatment and must
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provide consent to the healthcare professional to allow him to provide him required relevant
healthcare.
LO 3
Influence of Human Rights Laws on the Fair Treatment of Patients in Healthcare Industries
Though it might seem that healthcare industries and the professional who work towards
providing healthcare to patients would offer their services equally to everyone irrespective of the
social, economic classes, race, wealth, gender, demographic, culture, political inclination etc,
their patients belong to, on taking a keen look into the operations of the healthcare industries, this
does not seem to be the case. This is why in order to ensure that required healthcare is provided
to all sections of the population equally and fairly, there are implemented various human rights
laws and regulationby both international and local authorities (Kuehlmeyer, Klingler and
Huxtable, 2018). This was a highly required step for the world to develop and grow as until then
the rich and powerful would get preference over the weak and the poor in relation to the
healthcare services that were being provided, an act which was judged to be inhumane.
This is why the World Health Organisation’s constitution of 1946 included basic human
rights as part of the healthcare obligations which have to be followed by all healthcare providers
and mandates that healthcare must be provided to all sections of the human classes irrespective
of culture, race, gender, wealth, religion etc, to ensure that no biases can affect the operations of
healthcare professional in performing their duties (Huiand et.al., 2020). Since then there have
been also passed other human rights laws both internationally and in the UK as well such as the
European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) of 1950 which is a human rights treaty that
mandates that healthcare is a basic human right and must provided to all members of the 47
signing member countries with no bias by healthcare industries and professionals. The UK’s
government has also passed the Human Rights Act 1998 for the same purposes.
These human rights laws and regulations implemented by national and international
authorities have been a tremendous step forward in maintaining and improving the health and
safety of impoverished, backward and minority sections of the society, many of whom were
previously shunned from being provided healthcare due to individual biases and prejudices. It is
because of these legally mandated laws and regulations that poor, impoverished and minority
sections of UK’s population are now provided required healthcare services fairly and equally
with respect to other wealthy and powerful sections of the society, and has resulted in the
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increase in the population of these impoverished, backward and minority sects of the total UK
population (Atellaand et.al., 2019).If the suffering individuals are not financially capable of
funding their healthcare treatment, he is no longer shunned as was the case in the past and
through the human rights laws, either the government funds his treatment or provides it to the
impoverished sections of the society at subsidised costs.
Relevant Legislations and Policies with Respect to Healthy and Safe Healthcare Conduct
There are multiple legislations and policies implemented by international and national
authorities to control, coordinate and regulate the healthcare services provide to patients by
healthcare professionals. These policies and laws are passed to ensure relevant effective
healthcare is provided to all patients irrespective of any prejudices or biases in all present
healthcare establishments and institutions across UK. Some of these are as follows:
Patient Confidentiality: This healthcare policy is legally mandated by national authorities with
the intention to ensuring that all operational and medical data and information collected by the
healthcare institutions and establishments in their operations of providing care to their patients
must always remain confidential only between the patients and the establishments (Wellerand
et.al., 2019). This assures patients that they can provide all relevant personal information to their
healthcare professionals without fear of their privacy being infringed upon or details of their
personal life being made public. This is an essential legally mandated policy as patients often
become reserved when asked about their personal habits and vices which is essential information
for the healthcare professionals in assessing the kind of treatment patients require.
Care Act 2014:This legislation mandates that all healthcare establishments in the UK must adopt
a patient centred approach in relation to providing healthcare to vulnerable children and adults of
all sects and groups of the population. This legislation mandates that healthcare professionals
must always put the requirements and wellbeing of their vulnerable patients at the forefront of all
of their healthcare processes and operations, with their patient’s best interest in mind and not for
monetary or professional gains. This act was implemented in order to eliminate healthcare
professionals from using a detached approach to their healthcare processes and operations
Patient Consent: This is a another legally mandated policy that ensures that healthcare
institutions and professionals cannot administer any kind of treatment to patients without their
personal consent to the method and medications used (Dixon-Woods, Lameand Kriznik, 2019).
This policy is also immensely essential in healthcare environment as patients always have to be
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aware of the treatments they are under and whether it is relevant to the issues or disease that they
are facing. This policy in addition to other laws ensure that healthcare professional do not use
their patients to test the effectiveness of new medicines and drugs in the market without their
prior understanding of the consequences involved and their legal consent.
LO 4
Relationship Between Ethics, Policy and Laws in Healthcare Scenario
There exist various coordinate relationships between the ethical requirements, legal
policies and laws in any given healthcare institution in their quest to provide to effective,
relevant and efficient healthcare to their patients. For the purposes of this section, this report has
chosen the real healthcare case scenario of the ‘Stafford Hospital Scandal’ which happened in the
late 2000’s in UK for the purposes of evaluating the relationship between laws, ethical
requirements and policies mandated by local, national and international authorities with the
intention to safeguarding the healthcare practices and methods provided by healthcare
institutions to their suffering and disease ridden patients.
The Stafford Hospital Scandal came in the publiceye in late 2008 after the then British
Prime Minister ordered an official inquiry into the reason for the apparent death of over 1200 of
the patients being provided healthcare at the Stafford Hospital located in Stafford (Carter and
Kline, 2017). When the investigation was complete, it highlighted and criticised the Stafford
Hospital’s trust and its leadership for their gross mismanagement of operations, disgusting
healthcare conditions and incapability of hospital to provide necessary healthcare to the now
deceased victims. The entire scandal has become a black mark on the public trust, confidence
and faith in the National Healthcare Services (NHS) of UK as there was also no sufficiently
adequate regulatory body present in the Stafford Hospital to assess and appraise their healthcare
processes and operations, because of which 1200 helpless patients died.
The Stafford Hospital Scandal healthcare scenario highlights the significant relationship
that exist between ethical requirements, policies and laws placed to regulate and control the
operations of healthcare institutions and professionals with respect to providing relevant, proper
and qualified healthcare to its suffering patients (Hillman, 2016). The operations of Stafford
Hospitals prior to the emergence of the scandal was in direct conflict will all the legally
mandated laws and policies and also showcased just how unethical healthcare professionals can
become if their operational healthcare approach isn’t centred with their patient’s best interest at
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its heart. From this case scenario it can be effectively judged that there is a direct relationship
between the ethical requirements, mandated policy, laws and the quality of healthcare that is
provided to suffering patients in healthcare institutions and that these policies and laws must
always be regulated by the concerned authorities in order to ensure the safety and health of
patients in healthcare institutions.
Impact of Relevant Law and Policy on Outcome of Healthcare Scenario
As after the complete enquiry on the Stafford Hospital Scandal, it was found out that the
primary reason for the deaths of over 1200 patients who were receiving healthcare from
professional at Stafford Hospital was attributed to the gross negligence and mismanagement of
the patients by Stafford Hospital’s leadership and trust, significant lapses and negligence of the
hospital relating to the healthcare conditions and the incapability of its healthcare professional to
provide relevant healthcare to the patients due to inadequate qualifications (Eilenberg, 2018).
These factors are absolutely in conflict with many of the legally mandated laws and policies by
UK’s authorities and had they been implemented and regulated, as was their design, to Stafford
Hospital’s operations, the deaths of 1200 patients would have surely been avoided in addition to
the scandal surfacing. The relevant laws and policies that could impact the operations of Stafford
Hospitals are as follows:
EU Professional Qualifications Directive of 2005:This UK mandated law could have positively
impacted the outcome of the healthcare scenario as it mandates that only adequately
professionally qualified personnel can be hired by healthcare institutions for taking care of the
needs and requirements of suffering patients. Had Stafford Hospital adhered to this mandated
law, one of the primary reasons for the scandal which was attributed to it possessing
inadequately qualified healthcare professionals could have been avoided and the 1200 patients
saved.
Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC): The official regulatory body of the UK
concerned with regulating the operations and functions of UK’s healthcare institutions was also
at fault as it did not effectively regulate the operations of Stafford hospital. Had it adhered to the
mandated legal policies and appropriately regulated the operations of Stafford Hospital, its
shortcomings related to the level of healthcare that was being provided to patients would have
surfaced leading to less deaths.
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Care Act 2014: The care act of 2014 legally mandates all UK healthcare institutions to adopt a
patient centred healthcare approach for all of its operations, processes and functions (Chiarini,
Opoku and Vagnoni, 2017). This mandates healthcare professionals to always operate with their
patient’s best interest in mind in relation to healthcare. Had Stafford Hospitals adhered to Care
Act 2014, it would have implemented a patient centred approach for all its healthcare operations
and the deaths of 1200 patients would never have happened.
CONCLUSION
Based on this report, it can be concluded that health care services are immensely essential
to maintaining and improving the physical and mental health of a given population. This report
first assesses the ways in which executive, legislature and judiciary determine the legal and
policy frameworks for health and social care professionals. Then the report studies various
characteristics of legislation, codes of practice, organisational and national policies. The report
also analyses the relationship between relevant national policies and legislation of social and
health care. The report also evaluates the impact of organisational and national policies against
industry standards on healthcare practices. The report assesses how local and global human
rights laws impact on fair treatment of patients in healthcare services and implements distinct
relevant policies and legislations to incorporate healthy and safe conduct in healthcare
professional’s practice. Further, the report analyses the relationship between ethics, policy and
law in relation to a healthcare scenario. Finally, the report evaluates the impact of policy and
laws on the prior healthcare scenario.
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