Social and health care was established in order to offer quality medical services to individuals who have old age, poverty or illness. The service was created to improve, treat and diagnose both mental as well as physical health (Adams, 2007). It should be noted that services of social care are accessible as well as available for any individual whose ability and needs are in line with the laid down rules irrespective of the background. Health and social care are guided by specific principles which provide great support to individuals by providing them protection as well as ensuring that they become safe in every aspects of the healthcare system. Principles of care have been significant in aiding in guaranteeing effective social and health care to the patients. Principles are described as guidelines or rules and in this paper, principles of care are very significant to social as well as health care contexts success. Legislations are laid down laws that are governing a sector. The paper will critically evaluate how principles of practice are executed in healthcare systems. It will discuss the impacts of legislations, codes of practice as well as standards on healthcare systems. Lastly, will appreciate how the rights to autonomy has to be formulated and implemented to protect the less disadvantaged members of the society.
Health and social care systems have numerous organizations or sections which offer healthcare services to the people with special needs. Social and health care services apply the principle as well as the philosophy of care to offer support to the vulnerable and less privileged individuals by executing their rights in accordance with the right codes of practice and legislation (Brotherton and Parker, 2013). The legislations and policies also offer a way to protect the individuals from any form of abuse as well as harm. It should be noted that a person-centred approach applied by the healthcare providers ensure that patients receive maximum and effective health care services (Grant & Greene, 2012). There are various principles for care that must be followed to ensure effective implementation of social and health care. Principles are described as guidelines or rules and in this paper, principles of care are very significant to social as well as health care contexts success. Most of the principles of care are applied to ensure that people are given effective care by enhancing anti-discriminatory practices (McGee,2005).
There are various principles of care that are normally used in implementation of health care;
Dignity; it should be noted that dignity of people is very vital and should, thus, be maintained and has to be considered in the settings of care users by their practices in various facets. Dignity is described as the honor and self-respect that is created in a person with time. Thus, healthcare provider must consider the dignity of the health as well as social care user while offering his or her health and social care services that he or she need. Respecting diversity; diversity is described as key and fundamental nature of personality in which there are numerous factors linked to having various qualities as well as features (Walker et al, 2016). Diversity has to be effectively managed in the process of quality service delivery.
Confidentiality; in line with the data protection act of 1998, it is mandated and demanded that data and information of every individual be respected. There are other rules which should also be followed for effective protection against any harm to the health and social care (Perri, Raab & Bellamy, 2005). Information and data of individuals receiving care can be shared among providers of care in case it is needed for providing effective services. It should also be noted that there are defined parties who can share information and data of the health and social care users. However, it is demanded that the information shared be relevant and given in the right manner and such information and data should make impact on different facets related to the safety facets of the health and social care users. It should be noted that principles of are normally applied in order to make sure that people are given effective care for social and health care by giving support to the people’s identities and beliefs. for instance, if the individuals are Christians, then most of them would be expected to have a church where they can pray.
Data Protection Act of 1998 manages as well as controls how an individual’s data and information is utilized by the government, businesses or organizations. The Act is the United Kingdom execution of the general data protection regulation. Users must ensure that the information us utilized transparently, lawfully and fairly. The information has to be utilized and explicit reasons, should be utilized in a manner which is relevant, limited and adequate to only the intended purpose, the information must be up to date and be accurate. The data protection Act of 1998 places confidentiality as a key and basic part of upholding dignity for the health and social care users. The Act demands that public entities comply with an array of principles of data protection.
Care Standard Act; The protection of the vulnerable adults’ program was established by the Care Standards Act of 2000. The aim of the program is to make sure that nobody is allowed or given a chance to work in a health and social care sector if they have any history of harm, neglect or abuse to the vulnerable adults under their care or if they had placed such adults under risk. Care Standard Act of 2000 was amended to Care act 2014. Under the amended Act, the authorities in the local level had their functions revised. They had to ensure that people who reside in those areas get services which hinder and prohibit their care needs from being delayed or become serious. They also had to ensure that such residents receive advice as well as information which they require in order to make prudent decisions concerning support and care and lastly have an array of provision of appropriate and high-quality services to choose from.
The Equality Act of 2010; The disability discrimination Act 1995 as well as the distinct educational needs as well as disability order of 2005 are two discrimination laws for the individuals living with disability; they offer individuals with disabilities vital rights which protect them against discrimination from accessing health and social services in United Kingdom. In 2010, the disability act was changed to Equality Act of 2010 (Manthorpe & Moriarty, 2014). The Act makes it unlawful to treat people unlawfully because of protected characteristics. Anti-discriminatory regulations are very significant to the lawful and ethical framework of provision of care as well as the fundamental protection of individuals dignity. Equality Act of 2010, thus, protects individuals getting care and the professionals who offer it from being treated unfairly due to any features which are under the regulations. The protected features entail; disability, age, maternity and pregnancy, belief or religion, sexual orientation, gender reassignment and sex (Jasanoff, 2011). The legal mechanism for applying the equality act is that it applies to every individual offering facilities, services and goods in the United Kingdom. Any person who is claiming to have been discriminated can either go to a county or tribunal court.
The Health and Social Care Act 2010 aims to give individuals a greater voice in their care
Mental Health Act or the Mental capacity Act of 2005; Protects people who do not have the capacity to make their own decisions. In numerous cases, patients can visit a hospital or any other mental health facility with their approval or agreement. In such instance, the patient can be described as a voluntary patient. Nevertheless, there are certain instances in which a person can be moved to a mental health facility using the laid down mental health act of 1983 without their agreement. Mental health act is the legislation is that covers the rights, treatment and assessment of individuals with mental health disorder. It should be noted that individuals who are under the mental health act require urgent and immediate treatment and assessment for a mental health disorder. Such individuals are normally at risk of creating harm to other people as well as themselves.
Freedom of information act of 2000; this legislation came into force in the country in 2005 and it states that information, for instance, held by the healthcare authorities or by healthcare professionals must be disclosed to the respective patients. Under this act, a request for a particular information can be done by any member of the public with that person writing a formal request letter for disclosure of such information. This means that a patient can be able to access healthcare information for any healthcare organization so long as a formal procedure is followed.
Sexual offences Act 2003; this act prohibits any sexual offence that is committed by a healthcare worker to patients of mental illness. This was necessitated by the lack of laws protecting mental illness sexual abuse victims. However, the law does not bar healthcare workers from offering intimate personal as well as close care to the mental illness patients so long as the behavior is not perceived or intended to be sexual.
The Human Rights Act 1998 Sets out the basic rights of every human being in the UK
Autonomy is described as having choice as well as control over the life of an individual. Being supported by a health and social care provider to continue with certain everyday tasks like shopping can be key in maintaining an individual’s autonomy (Taylor, 2014). However, an individual’s autonomy is normally at risk in instances in which an individual requires aid in most private and key needs as is observed in residential or health centers care. it can be also at risk when a health impairment impacts on the ability of an individual to communicate effectively. Health and social care providers should never make the mistake of assuming that since they effectively know the person or the patient, they will definitely know and understand most of his or her preferences. According to Needham & Carr (2015), older people who have been deemed as vulnerable in the society always require more time to recuperate after undergoing surgery or illness, thus, an effective and rehabilitation program is viewed as an intermediate care. However, most of the older people are quickly rushed into longstanding care since they are not offered effective opportunity to benefit from rehabilitation care services (Turner & Cooper Ueki, 2015).
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a psychological theory which describes the theory of human motivation. This theory emphasizes on key stages of growth of human motivation, applying the terms safety, self-actualization, esteem, love, belonging and physiological. This theory can be applied in the principle of care in healthcare in the review, implementation, planning and assessment of patient care. This will health and social care providers in identifying unmet as well as unfulfilled patient needs as they transition to health care needs (Zalenski & Raspa, 2006). it also enables health care providers to identify the patient on the continuum of health and illness and to integrate health models as well as human perspectives into meeting the needs. It is should be noted that the meeting of the lower needs is key to an individual’s wellbeing and health. The principles motivate health care professionals in every sphere of the healthcare systems to look beyond their specific area of professional expertise, that is, clients or the patients will be assessed in the context of their career situation, family and physical health, their ability to effectively communicate as well as the ability to work (Zalenski & Raspa, 2006).
The changing nature of basic care denotes that community healthcare providers will increasing and gradually be expected to adopt new roles which have conventionally been performed by other experts and in which can be linked to greater level of risk. Principles of care and support provide a platform to the healthcare providers and experts to navigate through various risks that they face in the provision of healthcare services to the people. Ethical dilemmas are always faced by healthcare providers who are treating and taking care of people living with dementia.
Conclusion
Social and health care services are very important in providing support and care to the patients as well as the health workers. In order to deliver quality and effective health and social care services to the public, health care providers are guided by the principles of care and support. These are sets of guidelines and ethical rules which a professional healthcare provider must follow in order to handle patients especially the vulnerable people in the society. In the United Kingdom, there are certain policies and legislations which have been enacted by the national government to protect the vulnerable members of the society and ensures that every individual receives equally and fairly health care services. Thus, it is the duty of every healthcare professionals to observe these legislations and in most cases apply different theoretical concepts like the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
References
Adams, R 2007, Foundations of Health and Social Care. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
Brotherton, G. and Parker, S 2013, Your foundation in health and social care: a guide for foundation degree students. London: Sage Publication
Grant, R & Greene, D 2012, ‘The Health Care Home Model: Primary Health Care Meeting Public Health Goals’, American Journal of Public Health, vol. 102, no. 6, pp. 1096–1103,
Jasanoff, S 2011, Reframing Rights: Bioconstitutionalism in the Genetic Age, Basic Bioethics, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass,
Manthorpe, J & Moriarty, J 2014, ‘Examining day centre provision for older people in the UK using the Equality Act 2010: findings of a scoping review’, Health & Social Care in the Community, vol. 22, no. 4, pp. 352–360,
McGee, P 2005, Principles of caring: a practical approach. Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes
Needham, C & Carr, S 2015, ‘Micro-provision of Social Care Support for Marginalized Communities – Filling the Gap or Building Bridges to the Mainstream?’, Social Policy & Administration, vol. 49, no. 7, pp. 824–841,
Perri, Raab, C & Bellamy, C 2005, ‘Joined-up government and privacy in the United Kingdom: managing tensions between data protection and social policy. Part I’, Public Administration, vol. 83, no. 1, pp. 111–133,
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Turner, S & Cooper Ueki, M 2015, ‘Current policy and legislation in England regarding older people – what this means for older people with learning disabilities: a discussion paper’, British Journal of Learning Disabilities, vol. 43, no. 4, pp. 254–260
Walker, C, Beck, CR, Eccles, R & Weston, C 2016, ‘Health inequalities and access to health care for adults with learning disabilities in Lincolnshire’, British Journal of Learning Disabilities, vol. 44, no. 1, pp. 16–23,
Zalenski, RJ & Raspa, R 2006, ‘Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: A Framework for Achieving Human Potential in Hospice’, Journal of Palliative Medicine, vol. 9, no. 5, pp. 1120–1127, https://youtu.be/9r17FqprE5g
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