Supporting Medication Use in Social Care Settings Report

This report provides a comprehensive overview of medication support within social care settings. It begins by outlining the relevant policies and legislation, including the Medicines Act 1968, the Health Act 2006, the Misuse of Drugs Act 2001, and the Controlled Drugs Regulations 2013. The report then details the roles and responsibilities of practitioners involved in medication administration, emphasizing the importance of verifying prescriptions, understanding medication effects, and ensuring timely administration. It explores various methods for accessing patient medication information, such as MAR sheets and care plans, and describes different routes of medication administration, including oral, inhalation, injection, and infusion. Furthermore, the report covers the forms in which medication can be presented (solid, liquid, and gas) and the equipment used for administration, such as spacers, oral syringes, and nebulizers. It also addresses the data required for recording medication use, including MAR sheets, care records, and controlled drug books. The report concludes by discussing the safe storage and disposal of medications, including COSHH guidelines, temperature regulation, and secure storage practices, as well as methods for safely disposing of unused or unwanted medications, in accordance with current regulations.

Supporting use of
medication in social care
setting

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
P1 Current policy and legislation that governs the handling of medication in social care
settings.........................................................................................................................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................4
P2 Roles and responsibilities of people involved in supporting the use of medication in social
care settings.................................................................................................................................4
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................4
P3 Ways to access the information about an individual medication...........................................4
P4 Describing the routes by which medication can be administered..........................................4
P5 Forms in which medication can be presented........................................................................5
P6 Use of equipments in the administration of medication........................................................5
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................6
P7 Data required to be recorded about the use of medication for individual in social care
setting..........................................................................................................................................6
TASK 5............................................................................................................................................6
P8 Safe storage of different medications....................................................................................6
P9 Ways to dispose of UN-used or unwanted medications safely .............................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7

REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Every person requires some kind of medication at one time or the another in their life.
People who are staying at social care homes also requires medical facilities so at that time the
practitioners who are present there are required to provide medications to these service users
(Altice and et. al., 2010). Therefore, it is very necessary that these people should be aware about
the medical facilities so that correct treatment should be provided to the social care people. This
report will discuss about the knowledge and understanding of role of practitioner in supporting
the use of medications.
TASK 1
P1 Current policy and legislation that governs the handling of medication in social care settings
There are various policies and legislation which is required to be summarised by
practitioners. The acts which are included here are under:-
 Medicines Act 1968 – It is an act of parliament of UK. Here basically the control of
medicines for both humans as well as veterinary use are being governed and it includes
their production and supply as well. This act makes sure that the medicines are being
supplied only after seeing the prescription.
 The health Act 2006 – Through this act, government tries to maintain the health of the
individuals who are living in the society. They have introduced various provisions like
ban on smoking at various places, ban on selling tobaccos etc.
 The Misuse of Drugs Act 2001 – It is an act which was present by UK government so as
to stop the misuse of use of drugs by the consumers. Here it is made sure that no person
will have a possession of controlled drug unlawfully or illegal supply of medicines is also
not possible (Fiore and Baker, 20110).
 The Controlled Drugs Regulations 2013 – The main aim behind introducing these
kinds of regulations was to strengthen the governance arrangements for using and
managing the controlled drugs
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TASK 2
P2 Roles and responsibilities of people involved in supporting the use of medication in social
care settings
The various roles and responsibilities which is required to be performed by the
practitioners who are allowed to give medicines to the care workers are as follows:-
 They are required to check that the medications which is ordered is the correct
medication and also ensure that the patient is able to self administer the medicines or not
(Fox and et. al., 2011).
 They should know both positive as well as negative effects of the medicines provided by
them to their patients.
 They should make sure that their patients are taking their medications on time so that
they can get cured as fast as possible.
 One of the most important factor is to check that the medicines are not expired so that it
may not harm their patients health.
TASK 3
P3 Ways to access the information about an individual medication
It is very important for the practitioners to access the medical information of their
patient's because then only they will be able to provide them treatment further in an effective
manner. Some of the ways are:-
 MAR(Medical Administration Record Sheet) – It is a kind of a legal record of the
drugs that are being given to a patient at a care home by the practitioners. It is considered
as a part of the medical record of people and its permanent as well.
 Care Plan – It is a kind of plan which is being created to make the health better of their
patients. The care plan which is created includes a health assessment in which the health
condition of the person is assessed and the results which will come is required to be
submitted to the federal government (Huntley and et. al., 2012).
P4 Describing the routes by which medication can be administered
The various routes through which the medical health of a person can be administered
are:-
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 Oral – It is a method in which the person is given a tablet, liquid or a capsule to in-digest.
It is one of the most common way to give treatment to a person.
 Inhalation – If the patient is having breathing problem then they can be given treatment
through a tube or a mask from where they can breathe.
 Injection – Through this method, the patient is given the medicines which they can not
eat or consume in any other manner. So, they are injected these medicines through a
needle (Michie and et. al., 2011).
 Infusion – Through this , the medicine is injected into a vein with an IV line and then
slowly dripped over time.
P5 Forms in which medication can be presented
The various forms in which medications can be provided are:-
SOLID – It is the method in which the patient is given something to eat so as to get cured. It is
in following form - Capsules – These are the smooth shells which is very easy to swallow and it cannot be
crushed or chewed.
 Tablets – It comes in various forms and can be crushed as well in water if the patient id
not ready to swallow it.
LIQUID – It is the method in which the medicines are being provided to the patients in liquid
form. It includes: Insulins – Through this the drug is directly injected to the patients body and they do not
need to gulp in anything.
 Syrups - It is in the form of a tonic which is being given to the patient according to their
disease (Reuben and Tinetti, 2012).
GAS – It is a method in which the person is supplied gas so as to get recovered. It can be given
in following ways - Oxygen - If the patient is having a breathing problem then they are provided with
oxygen.
 Nebuliser - It is a type of a inhaler which is used to take the medicine inside the body.
P6 Use of equipments in the administration of medication
The various equipments which are used for administering the medications are:-
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 Spacer Devices – It is a device which is usually given to asthma patients and is used to
administer the aerosolized medications from a metered dose inhaler.
 Oral syringes – These are used to administer the liquid medications to adult and children
and no needle is attached with it (Seymour, Kumar and Froggatt, 2011).
 Nebuliser – It is a type of a spray which is being used by the patients to make the drug
reach inside their body without even inhaling it.
 Drink – These are the drinks which is being created to cure the patients and for this they
can make use of medicine cup in order to measure their volume.
TASK 4
P7 Data required to be recorded about the use of medication for individual in social care setting
The various methods which can be used by the practitioners to record the medications of
their individual patients are -
 MAR sheet - It is a kind of a working document which is used to record the kinds o
medicines which is being provided to a particular person while being treated. They are
being created by the pharmacy on monthly basis.
 Care records – It is a kind of electronic record of patients which can be used by the
patients anywhere in case of receiving any kind of treatment.
 Controlled Drug Book – It is being created by the practitioners for safety and security of
patients as there are many times when practitioners change on shift basis so each time a
new medical record cannot be created so this record book can be used by all.
TASK 5
P8 Safe storage of different medications
The places which are safe for storing medications are as follows:-
 COSHH – It stands for Control of substances Hazardous to Health Regulations. It is
being implemented by the practitioner to control the exposure of harmful substances in
order to prevent ill-health (Smith, Giuliano and Starkowski, 2011).
 HEAT REGULATED – It is always recommended that the medications are required to
stored in those types of areas where there is low temperature because otherwise it may
damage the medicine as well.
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 LOCKED – All those medicines which are not being used in a regular manner is required
to be kept in a locked place so that it can not get mixed with other medicines.
P9 Ways to dispose of UN-used or unwanted medications safely
There are various ways to dispose of medicines if its not used or will not be used in
future. Some of them are as follows :-
 Those unused medications can be returned to the medical store and this is required also as
the New Rules formed in 2014 (Smith and et. al., 2010).
 Check the back of the medicines in which the disposing off method is given and it should
be followed by them to get rid of the medicines.
 If the drug is dangerous then flushing them will be a good option.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it can be concluded that it is very important for the people who
are working on the social care homes to have knowledge about the medical facilities so that they
can provide it to their support users whenever they are in need of them. They should be given
proper training about this and without training they should not be allowed to provide tratement to
anyone. In this report, the detail knowledge about current policies and legislations are provided.
There are various types of roles and responsibilities of these practitioners which are also
discussed here. Along with this the administration of medication in social care settings was also
covered.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Altice, F. L. and et. al., 2010. Treatment of medical, psychiatric, and substance-use comorbidities
in people infected with HIV who use drugs. The Lancet. 376(9738). pp.367-387.
Fiore, M. C. and Baker, T. B., 2011. Treating smokers in the health care setting. New England
Journal of Medicine. 365(13). pp.1222-1231.
Fox, C. and et. al., 2011. Anticholinergic medication use and cognitive impairment in the older
population: the medical research council cognitive function and ageing study. Journal of
the American Geriatrics Society. 59(8). pp.1477-1483.
Huntley, A. L. and et. al., 2012. Measures of multimorbidity and morbidity burden for use in
primary care and community settings: a systematic review and guide. The Annals of
Family Medicine. 10(2). pp.134-141.
Michie, S. and et. al., 2011. Development of a taxonomy of behaviour change techniques used in
individual behavioural support for smoking cessation. Addictive behaviors. 36(4).
pp.315-319.
Reuben, D. B. and Tinetti, M. E., 2012. Goal-oriented patient care—an alternative health
outcomes paradigm. New England Journal of Medicine. 366(9). pp.777-779.
Seymour, J. E., Kumar, A. and Froggatt, K., 2011. Do nursing homes for older people have the
support they need to provide end-of-life care? A mixed methods enquiry in
England. Palliative Medicine. 25(2). pp.125-138.
Smith, M., Giuliano, M. R. and Starkowski, M. P., 2011. In Connecticut: improving patient
medication management in primary care. Health Affairs. 30(4). pp.646-654.
Smith, P. C. and et. al., 2010. A single-question screening test for drug use in primary
care. Archives of internal medicine.170(13). pp.1155-1160.
Online
Routes for administering medications.2018.[Online].Available
through:<https://www.healthline.com/health/administration-of-medication#routes>.
Altice and et. al., 2010Fiore and Baker, 2011Fox and et. al., 2011Huntley and et. al., 2012Michie
and et. al., 2011Reuben and Tinetti, 2012Seymour, Kumar and Froggatt, 2011Smith,
Giuliano and Starkowski, 2011.Smith and et. al., 2010
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