Describe how practitioners should apply values of care in a health and social care service.
Introduction
Maintaining confidentiality
Health and social care setting
Confidentiality is keeping a confidence between the client and the practitioner which is an important part of good health care service. However in some cases a practitioner/care worker has to discuss people’s cases with a manager and they must tell them about what the client has said. They may even need to reveal what they know about an individual in a court.
In health and social care there is no absolute confidentiality because a practitioner may need to share information about and individual/ client to another practitioner. Health records are confidential so they cannot just be revealed to anyone. They should only be shared on a need to know basis and it should only be shared with the patient and no one else. A health and social care worker may need to break confidentiality if the individual is going to harm themselves or other or if they are going to commit a criminal offence. Individuals who are being cared for need to be able to trusty the care workers. If confidentiality is broken then they will not trust the health and social care providers and may not share personal information with them later on in the future because the information that a care worker holds can ruin a person’s life.
Early years setting
There are two types of records on children in early years setting which are documental and personal records. Documental records are observations of the children in the early years setting such as samples of their work, summary developmental reports and records of achievement including photos. They are usually kept in the classroom where they are accessed and contributed to by staff, the children and parents. Parents have free access to these records but when a member of staff is done with showing it to the parents it is usually locked away safely.
Personal records are confidential records which include registration and admission records, signed consents and records of relevant contact of parents. They are usually stored in a schools office is kept secure by the person in charge and put in a safe place. Personal records also include a child’s diet, allergies and child collection arrangements which are shared will all of the staff so that they are aware. There are times when sharing all the information about a child is required without first obtaining the parents’ permission. This would usually happen when there are concerns of a child being at risk of perhaps harm.
Parents can have access to pupil files but when there is reference of another child in a paper this is withheld because this becomes confidential information as it is about another child and not only about the parents own child.
Promoting equality and diversity
Health and social care setting
Equality means treating everyone equally regardless of their colour, age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability etc. Diversity means the fact that everyone is diverse. Diversity recognises and respects everyone’s differences and it welcomes and encourages the differences and variety that groups have to offer. There are different societies in health and social care so staff must value diversity and equality and they must not give favourable treatments to certain groups of people because they hold prejudices again other people. They must treat everyone in the same equal way. Care workers can actively promote equality and diversity in health and social care by treating everyone equally with the same rights.
Early years setting
Equality and diversity plays a major role in early years. People who work in an early years setting must promote equality and diversity because there are many different kinds of children in early years setting. Care workers should aim to reflect on the diverse society in which we all live and they should challenge stereotyping. For children in early years seeing diversity and equality is important so that everyone perceives themselves as equal. Diversity will help to realise that everyone is different and this helps the all of the children to get along with each other. Then in the future they will continue will the same attitude to all kinds of different people around them and respect each other. In order to promote equality and diversity in early years care workers should welcome all families equally, they should help and support families for whom English is their second language, where possible they should provide information in languages of other people communities and there should be no discrimination against any children, parents or carers on any level.
Promoting individual rights and belief
Health and social care setting
Nurses and care workers should value the rights and beliefs of individuals in order to work well with them. In order to promote and individual’s rights or beliefs they need to understand the needs of certain individuals. For example, they have to tell some people that they can’t eat certain foods or can’t do certain exercises as it could put a bad effect on their health or they might even have to tell them do certain painful exercises. Care workers, nurses and doctors may have to act sternly to those who don’t listen to them. However they should not overdo it and accidently override the patient’s beliefs or rights. A patient may refuse to eat because the food that they are being served has meat in it and they don’t want to eat it because they are a vegetarian. Another patient may need to get out of bed to perform their religious ceremonies or prayers.
Some people who acquire healthcare may feel that their independence is slipping away from them. For example people on kidney machines, might feel that their lives are being ruled by the priority that they are always given treatment. They may feel that they are not normal. In situations like this the attitude and understanding of healthcare workers can make a huge difference. Finding ways to accommodate patient’s lives can be a way of promoting individual rights and beliefs.
Early years setting
In early years setting children have rights and beliefs. These rights include, all children throughout the world have rights, children have a right to live, they have the right to live with their parents or someone who cares for them, children should be listened to and they should be able to say and do what they want, children should be able to have the freedom to discover new things, children should be able worship as they wish, children should be able to meet together and make new friends, children should be safe from harm and not hit by a grownup or another child, children in need of special care should get it, all children should be able to go to the same school regardless of their belief or other values, children should not be allowed to do dangerous work and everyone, children and adults should no and respects child rights. In order to promote individual rights and beliefs everyone in the early years setting should respect each other’s beliefs and if possible help them.
Keeping children safe and maintaining a healthy environment
Early years setting
Every child deserves the best possible care in the first stages of their lives and they should get the opportunity to learn and develop in a safe and secure environment. Childcare may provided within a variety of different settings. To ensure the children are safe by making sure that the security is the best that it can be and all the doors must be locked properly otherwise having security will become less effective and pointless. By providing and maintaining a safe and healthy environment will require better understanding of what care workers need to do in order to make sure that the environment is perfectly safe and healthy for the children in early years. The components to a safe and healthy environment are the physical environment, the people, equipment, the emotional environment and documentation. The physical environment is the actual building in which the care is being provided. Indoor and outdoor areas where children can learn should be available to all of the children and the levels of security must be maintained at all times. The people who are providing the care must be suitable as they should know how to do the job properly. The play equipment should be suitable for its purpose and should be appropriate for meeting the needs of the children. The emotional environment enables children to grow, develop and help them reach their full potential so the environment should be safe and secure for them in order to do that. Documentation is about all the policies and procedures that support clearly set out duties, responsibilities and actions.
Valuing diversity
Early years setting
Care workers should try to recognise that children and their families come from diverse backgrounds. All families have needs and values that arise from their social and economic, culture or religious backgrounds. Some children grow up in diverse family structures which include two parents and one parent family and children even grow up in an extended family with grandparents, aunts, uncles and even cousins. Some children have needs that arise from disability or impairment or may have parents affected by disability or impairment. Some children come from families who are affected by social exclusion or severe hardship sometimes they may have to face discrimination and prejudice because of their ethnicity, religious cultural background, the languages they speak, their gender or their disability or impairment. These factors can affect the well being of a child and can impact their learning or entertainment. To show that care workers value diversity it can be shown in a number of ways they can provide a secure and accessible environment and value any contributions made, they can value the contribution of all families, they could improve their knowledge and understanding and they can make good relations with the children in order to value them.
Working in partnership with parents and families.
Early years setting
Parents and families matter a lot and play a huge role in early years because mums and dads are the first most important influence in a child’s development and future outcomes. The role that mums and dads play in supporting their child’s development is very important for future outcomes. In early years parents entrust their child into the hands of carers to support them. So this is why working in partnership with parents and families is important so they should be actively engaged with.
Equality of opportunity
Early years setting
In early years all children should be provided with equality of opportunity regardless of who they are. Children of both sexes female and male should be positively encouraged to participate in all activities. Care workers should positively welcome all children and their families of all races, languages, beliefs and backgrounds and strive to provide all children with positive self images and values so that they do not feel excluded or discriminated against. Early years should promote equality of opportunities to everyone so that everyone feels a sense of recognition. This can be done in a number of ways such as; toys and equipment are chosen with differing needs of the child in mind, the use of displays to reflect a positive image towards the world that we live in, books are chosen to meet all of the children’s different ages and abilities. In early years staff must also value and respect people regardless of who they are.
Case studies in health and social care settings
Being a care assistant
Being acare assistant means working in shifts day or night. Sue fisher does shifts in a residential home and a nursing home for the elderly. In the care home where sue works she gives out meals and helps those who cannot feed themselves. In the morning she helps people to wash themselves and get dressed. At meal times she checks that everyone has the right food for to eat and then leaves the care home of the service users are
This case study values diversity by ensuring that all of the service users are receiving the right food at lunch times. Sue is also care for all the service users in the same manner and is promoting equality. Sue also respects everyone’s beliefs and values
Social worker
Katherine is a social worker who supports children and young people with disabilities. She works for a respite care team which recruits assesses and trains carers while they provide care to a child with a disability in the carer’s home for one weekend a month.
Katherine is providing equality of opportunity by providing care to every child. So she is not discriminating between the children or taking extra care of children from only her background
Dentist
At the dentist all of the dentists first examine each patient carefully and they look carefully at soft tissues such as the cheek and lips to check for any symptoms of oral cancer. They make sure to record the state of the gums and chart the teeth. When extracting teeth every dentist ensure that the patient is comfortable and if needed will ask the patient if they are okay.
Case studies in early years settings
At angel child every child’s privacy is respected. At every parents evening the teachers ensure that the parent claiming to be the child’s parent is defiantly the parent. At every parents evening the parents are shown the child’s progress report. Then they are taken back from the parents and carefully placed in an organised filing cabinet.
This childcare organisation is ensuring and maintaining confidentiality of every child regardless of who they may be by making sure that the parent with the child is defiantly the child’s parent then the parent is shown the report and is locked away