Analysis of UK Legislation in Health and Social Care

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments for students. This report examines the UK's legal and policy landscape for health and social care.

1.1 HOW THE LEGISLATURE, THE
EXECUTIVE AND JUDICIARY OF UK SET
LEGAL AND POLICY LANDSCAPE FOR
HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE
PRACTITIONERS.
The governance of UK is one of the
known and well-operated governance
known in the world. Their functioning is of
an integrated manner where 3 parties are
involved. The legislature that gives the
legislation, the executive to implement the
legislation given to them and the judiciary
that help in solving disputes and strictly
complying the legislation on the public.
The roles of each and who forms each
system is as follows (Gostin and Wiley.,
2016).
The legislative body of the government is
the parliament, it has two lawmaking
bodies the ‘House of Commons’ and the
‘House of Lords’ and the monarch, and
finally the supreme court and the highest
source of the law. There are nearly 500 to
600 members in the parliament and many
bills are passed in the parliament each
year, this bill can be executed only after
approval of the Queen. So irrespective of
any house the monarch
is always the supreme authority in the
legislature.
The role of the legislature in health and
social care sector is to pass the legislative
act for protecting the health and safety of
the people. They pass various legislation
such as Health and Safety Act 2008.
Other than the legislation they appoint the
health and social care committee, and the
entire administration and expenditure
made on the national provider of health
and social care. They have the supreme
authority and two main health care
committee under the parliament is the
NHS and the CQC (Hirst and Atto., 2018).
They set the rules and ethics of practice
and also investigate the health care
organization to check their functioning.
The executive body is the government,
the police, and the local authorities. Their
main role is to implement the legislation
given by the legislative bodies. The
government of each state is responsible
for implementing these in their state. The
UK is divided into four states and each
state has its government that has to report
to the legislative body members (Levy et
al.,2017).
The judicial body comprises of the judge
and the people of the parliament and the
people of the government. The main role
of the judiciary in the health and social
care sector is to resolve disputes that
arise due to the fault by any part with
regards to health services. The supreme
court is the highest authority in resolving
these disputes (Kerwin and Furlong.,
2018).
LO 1: LAW, POLICY AND ETHICAL PRACTICE IN
HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE

1.2 KEY FEATURES OF LEGISLATION,
STATUTORY GUIDANCE, CODES OF
PRACTICE, AND NATIONAL AND
ORGANISATIONAL POLICY IN HEALTH
AND SOCIAL CARE
To organize the working of the government
and systematic approach to the issues of
the nation there are various rules,
regulations, and commandments that the
government of a particular nation has to
follow: these are legislation, statutory
guidance, codes of practice and various
policies. Key features of each of this system
are explained (Chriqui and Young., 2016).
The legislation is an important part of the
systemic working of the government. It gives
rights to the citizens and protects them in
various ways. It is the rules applied by the
legislature and has to be followed by the
citizens of the nation. These legislations are
in the form of bill and resolution. In the
health and social sector the main legislation
is.
The health
and safety legislation (1974), RIDDOR
(1995), COSHH, manual handling act
(1992) these are the main legislation that
focuses on the safety of the individual.
Statutory guidance is mainly to give
information regarding health and care
services and how they must meet the laws
and obligation in their local region of
practice. The local authorities have to follow
the act and legislation and act as required
by the legislation. Unless they are a valid
reason to not follow it. The guidance is also
used for the people to provide the care and
support their families to help them
understand the new system as decided by
the court of law. This helps the local
authority to practice with law and ethics
(Harriss and Atkinson., 2015).
The code of practice for a particular
profession is the given set of rules of
practice and conduct in that profession. In
the health and social care sector, this is also
known as the code of nursing. The code of
nursing consists of the standard of practice
the nurses and midwives must practice
when they are dealing with a patient. They
can be taken under legal procedure if they
are observed to breach this in any manner.
It also gives the sense of ethics with the
patient and directs them to make right
choices in day to day practice as well as
respect the patient.
In my experience, there have been various
events when I have experienced the
importance of ethics in practice. In the
health and social care sector we deal with
the life of the patient and their families it
becomes an immense responsibility of the
health care worker to be just and follow the
rules to be able to give the best of the
services and use their knowledge to the
maximum of their capacity (Hall et al.,2018).
The national policies are the plans and
decision taken to achieve specific goals in
the health and social care sector. There 3

main key features in the health sector based
on which policies are made. These are;
maximize health care, reducing the burden
of cost, and equally distribute health
services and cost within the nation.

REFERENCE
 Gostin, L.O. and Wiley, L.F., 2016. Public health law: power, duty, restraint. Univ of California Press.
 Hirst, C. and Atto, N., 2018. United Kingdom-Country Report: Legal and Policy Framework of Migration Governance.
 Levy, L., Pasquale, F., Scholar, L. and Hoffmann, L.H.D.D., 2017. Law & Health Care.
 Kerwin, C.M. and Furlong, S.R., 2018. Rulemaking: How government agencies write the law and make policy. Cq Press.
 Chriqui, J.F. and Young, S.K., 2016. Public health policy analysis and evaluation. Prevention, policy, and public health,
p.67.
 Harriss, D.J. and Atkinson, G., 2015. Ethical standards in sport and exercise science research: 2016 update. Int J Sports
Med, 36(14), pp.1121-1124.
 Hall, M.A., Orentlicher, D., Bobinski, M.A., Bagley, N. and Cohen, I.G., 2018. Health care law and ethics. Wolters Kluwer
Law & Business.