Employability Skills Within Health and Social Care Settings

Introduction.
Employability.
There are many career prospects in Health and Social care all across the United Kingdom. For someone to be employable in Health and social care setting, one has to be highly motivated, have skills they can transfer to the job, understanding and personal good qualities (Finley, Ivanitskaya, and Kennedy 2007). Employment is when someone is able to get a job, stay in the job and if an opportunity arises they will be in a position to develop their profession (Yorke,2004).To demonstrate that there are a lot of opportunities in Health and social care, this report is going to examine the variety of employment roles within the setting. It will also explain why it is important to have a well-structured organisation that is an organisation with hierarchy. In addition some of the hierarchy information will be described in diagrams and some will be noted down for example its responsibilities and roles .ref.
Different types of professions within health and social care .
According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (1987), people have the same desires and needs which need to be satisfied. The needs are physiological, safety, social, esteem and self-actualisation. Depending on an individual, if one of these needs are not met or all of them one becomes preoccupied and vulnerable. For people’s needs to be met, health and social care need to be different so that it can offer cost-effective care while maintain good high quality (Smith, 2000). The needs can be met by giving direct support to individuals or by working with people in the society. Healthcare is the managementofillness by treating and preventing it. This can be achieved by trained professionals for example alliedhealthprofessions. Whereas Social Care services aid everyone who is marginalised and vulnerable due to sickness, disability, old age and poverty. However, social care consider needs and ability of the person before they provide the services (NHS, 2014) .There are many services in health and social care services. They include care networks, community care networks, health maintenance organizations and accountable health plans. That means there are many places where one can get employment in health and social care. For example hospitals, medical offices and community health centres. Another service in social and health care is public health; is involved in the promoting of well-beings for individuals and societies. Because all of these services in health and social care, for effective services to be achieved there is supposed to have a variety range of professions (Martin, etal, 2010).

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Healthcare professions can be identified into three groups, that is independent practitioners provides range of services without the approval of the third party .Dependant practitioners provides few services under the management of an independent practitioner. Support staffs, works under the management of independent practitioners and dependant practitioners (Coles and Porter, 2009).However having said that, some of the healthcare occupations may fall under one category depending on the place of employment and duties that are attached to that job.
Allied healthcare professions encompass a range of careers in all aspects of care. Some of the allied healthcare occupations are found in medical, technology, respiratory therapy, occupational therapy, physiotherapy and dietetics. They can work in either the community or with an individual depends on the place of work and responsibilities .This extends to the needs of the individual or the community.
The nursing occupation is the biggest in healthcare .Nurses can work in different healthcare settings, depending on their roles and responsibility and the place they are working. Nurses have ethical responsibility to safeguard life and to relieve suffering. The moral principles that govern their behaviour are respect of autonomy, nonmaleficence and beneficence (Schwartz,etal,) Nurses have to apply standards and guidelines set by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC,2014).
Another occupation in healthcare is Dietitians.They are qualified professionals in diet. They help people to make informed choice by giving them advice on good lifestyle and food choices. To practice as a dietician one has to be registered by Health and Care Professional Council (HCPC). They also treat people with different medical problems associated with diet (BDA, 2014).
Other occupations within social care area, are social workers and social care worker. Social care workers do not need qualification because their main roles is to give personal care and help the service users to manage their every day to day life However duties may vary depend on where one works. A person can work in different social care settings for instance in the community giving door to door support to the service users. They don’t have a legal board but each and every one is accountable and responsible for their actions to their employers (Brotherton and Parker, 2011).Furthermore Social workers work in different places in social care settings .They can work with different organisations like charities, independent organisations. In addition some can work for the NHS and mental health trust. They work closely with service users, their friends and families. They can also involve police, local department schools and probation services depending on the client they are dealing with. For one to be a social work qualifications are needed a degree or masters because the job involves working vulnerable people. They can work with either adults or children; this includes elderly, young offenders, people with different disabilities and homeless. Hence their role is to advocates, advice, counselling and listening. In addition the type of job they can carry depends on the area and case they are working on. They work closely with law so for one to practise in UK has to be registered withHealth and Care Professions Council(HHPC).
Demonstrating research skills in researching careers.
It is important to show good research skills in researching a career one wants to follow. It is important because this will make someone prepared and show their dedication towards the career progression. If one wants to be a nurse, they are supposed to be caring, and compassionate towards people. In addition commitment to helping people is also important. There are many jobs that are available in nursing and the major employer being National Health Service (NHS) .They includes clinical practice, management, education and consultation. Nursing is divided into four branches which are; mental health, adult, learning disability and children’s nursing. For someone to be a qualified nurse, one needs to have a degree in nursing. And to be a qualified nurse working for NHS one needs to be registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NHS).In addition ,once one has qualified and obtained the important experiences ,they can go on and develop their skills so that they can become specialist in a particular field. They can become practice nurse .This can give them opportunities to work in different health and social care areas like community health centres and hospitals .If one is a nurse working for a NHS there are different Bands depending on experience and qualifications.
All this information I started searching on the internet and then for in depth I searched on different NHS careers websites which are;
http://www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/working-in-the-nhs/pay-and-benefits/agenda-for-change-payrates
,http://nursing.nhscareers.nhs.uk/.
I also searched on www.ucas.com and the Royal of College of nursing website.
http://www.rcn.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/78667/002775.pdf.
Hierarchy within health and social care.
Health and social care settings are very big, so effective and quality care to be given there must be order within the organisation. An organisation has to distribute the job to people who have skills arranging them from the bottom to the top (Fisk etal,2011). It is like a ladder, a person or group at the bottom will be managed by the ones above them. The people on the top levels have power, authority and ability to enforce rules to those on the bottom levels. This arrangement is called hierarchy (Galinsky and Magee,2011).In addition, since health and social care is very big, there are some job combinations that are unlikely to go well together. Some skills needed for a particular job may be different from one another, for an example the finance department and the nursing department. Furthermore in health and social care there are big organisations with big hierarchies and small organisations with small hierarchies. For an example NHS is a well-structured and a big hierarchical organisation whereas a care nursing home is small hierarchical organisation. This means each and every worker in that particular organisation has a significant role that is connected to their qualifications and responsibilities. Below are diagrams of two different hierachies,big and small .
The big organisations have got many structures and many management systems; this enables tasks to be carried out easy with competent people. The people on the lower levels often show support for hierarchies because whenever they are stuck on anything they ask the person above them, this reduces stress and responsibilities. The advantage of Hierarchy in a big organisation is that everyone knows their job description and who is above them. However this is different from a small organisation as there are few employees. In addition, small organisations everyone has to be a generalist. The other advantage of big hierarchical organisations is that they employ many employees and everyone would be accountable for their work, however nobody takes an overview because everybody will be doing their specific job. In a small hiercchial organisation if a problem arise it can be sorted quick because there are few workers and many of them do general whereas in a big hierarchical organisation information passes through many people. Decisions take so long because they have to pass through many levels. In big organisations there are limited opportunities to develop skills because one will be stuck in one job description whereas in small organisation one can develop many skills because they do not have a specific job. There is also some limitations in small hierarchical system organisations, there is few chances of improvement within the organisation. The nursing staff can only advance if there is a promotion (Steege, 2014). There are limited positions available for that. There are only two advanced nursing positions in a nursing home. These nurses are MDS nurse and the Director of Nursing. Normally people working on these positions stay in the job for quite a long time so there would not be any vacancies. Furthermore in a small organisation workload can overburden the person in charge for example nurse in charge will be responsible for working on the floor, giving medications and answering any relative’s queries. Hierarchies motivates employees to perform well because of the opportunities for promotion, however in big organisations many levels increase the costs of the organisation.
The Importance Hierarchy in terms of roles and responbilties.
A hierarchy is very important in health and social care organisations because it provides order and structure (Markus and Kitiyana,2003).Hierarchy includes authority and following of rules. People who are employed in hierarchal organisations are accountable for getting assigned work done; hence there is authority and power involved. The role of hierarchy is to place people with necessary skills and competence at each level and making it easy to identify accountability at each level if any error happens(Rose,Wenzel,andMiltlying,2002). People who work in hierarchical organisations have assigned roles and responsibilities according to the contract they sign between them and the employer. According to employment Rights Act (1996), the contract should contain all employments terms. This helps to put boundaries in each level of the hierarchy because it states what a person can and cannot do. The hierarchy helps to create effective communication between employees and all levels of the hierarchy. The hierarchy also ensures that employers and other professional guidelines are followed.
CONCLUSION .
There are many opportunities for one to be employed in health and social care settings. There are different ranges of occupations within the settings. Most of the occupations require training and one should be registered with the right board to be able to practise. Health and social care is big hence hierarchy is important to bring structure to the organisations.
http://www.nhs.uk/CarersDirect/social-care/Pages/what-is-social-care.aspx
nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/advice/planning/jobprofiles/Pages/dietitian.aspx.
http://www.rcn.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/78667/002775.pdf
D. Baird Schwartz, M.E. Posthauer, J. O’Sullivan Maillet
Practice Paper of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: Ethical and Legal Issues of Feeding and Hydrationhttp://www.eatright.org/HealthProfessionals/content.aspx?id=6889Accessed April 29, 2013
http://www.nmc-uk.org/
www.bda.uk.com
http://www.bdacareerchoices.com/.
George.n root 111,demandmedia.
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