Safeguarding in Health and Social care
D1, D2, D3
Safeguarding is defined as, “a mechanical device for ensuring safety.” (dictionary.com, 2018. Safeguard. <https://www.dictionary.com/browse/safeguard?s=t> accessed 26.11.18) Within Health and Social Care this quote means that its a range of policies and procedures that. Fit together to help protect service users from harm and abuse. Safeguarding is used by large organisations to help protect either customers, workers or students depending on the organisation itself, the main aim of safeguarding is to prevent harm coming to anyone or an attempt to help someone escape a difficult situation they may find themselves in, it happens in a wide range of place that range from schools to prisons.
One of the key issues in safeguarding is child protection, The is is handled by the department of education in England who set out the legislation and the policies on child protection and how it will be put into effect in Health and Social Care settings, for example if a social carer was to make a child protection plan to put into action on a child. Child protection works to protect children from harm and abuse in all settings for example in a nursery setting if a child was seen to be coming in with unexplained bruises, the professionals within the nursery would follow child protection laws to help protect the child, another example would be a social worker evaluation a child's home environment and deciding they are level 4 on the Lancashire continuum of needs and deciding they need to be removed from the home.
Another key issue within safeguarding is Adult safeguarding, the Care Act 2014 was the first ever act to mention Adult Safeguarding, ensuring that vulnerable adults are also catered for and services will be developed that will be more appropriate for them rather than a service that would be more useful used on a child. An example of this is in a care home service users would be protected by adult safeguarding, so if a worker suspected a service user was being abused, they could whistleblow the situation by informing the relevant people meaning the service user will then be safeguarded and protected from the harm.
Another key issue within safeguarding is prevention of risk and abuse, the Care Act 2014 works to make sure that a person is cared for as soon as possible it is not left until a person is left in a critical condition of need. Safeguarding a person as soon as possible is one if the most important parts in safeguarding as it means the impact of an event on a person can be reduced significantly. Ways in which organisations can promote the prevention of risk could include making use that all staff are well trained and that there is a 0 tolerance of a use policy in place. Another way would be to have “A sound framework for confidentiality and information sharing across agencies” (Hampshire Safeguarding Adults Board, 2015. Prevention and Early intervention in Adult Safeguarding. <http://www.hampshiresab.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/HSAB-Guidance-on-Prevention-and-Early-Intervention-in-Safeguarding2.pdf> (accessed 29.11.18)) This would involve making sure there is a clear set of rules that are followed across multiple agencies making sure that their are less mistakes and little confusion making sure that safeguarding a person will become a much easier and much smoother process.
Protection from abuse is another key issue within safeguarding, protection from abuse can be set up by organisations developing policies on safeguarding people from abuse and neglect, the policies can then include procedures on what a practitioner should do if they suspect that a person is being abused or neglected, this could including a procedure on whistleblowing in which a person will report the situation to the relevant third party for the situation to be investigated.
These issues all hold a high relevance towards safeguarding as they are applied to real life scenarios, for example using the Winterbourne View case study, the patients at these care homes were suffering from abuse from practitioners and it was not being prevented, the Care Act 2014 introduced policies which work to safeguard adults to protect them from this abuse and had this piece of legislation had been put in place at the time of the abuse at Winterbourne view, procedures would have been in place which would have helped put it to a stop, this is why prevention of abuse is such a key issue within safeguarding.
Child protection holds a high relevance towards safeguarding as it is implemented in cases where children may be suffering severely, an example of this is the case of Baby P, Baby P was a 17 month old baby who died after suffering more than 50 injuries in an 8 month period, during which Children’s services were attending the home to check for any signs of abuse. During this period various signs of abuse were missed and sadly the system didn’t work successfully for Baby P, Child protection services work to prevent this, it works to provide different resources such as the Lancashire continuum of needs which provides a list of conditions to help a practitioner decide what kind of care a child may need, it works to provide highly specific criteria to help prevent any mistakes in future to try and stop cases such as Baby P happening in future.
C1, C2, C3
The Care Act brings several pieces of legislation under 1 umbrella, it has 3 main aims which are:
To inform service users what they are entitled to.
To inform local authorities of their duties under the act.
To inform local authorities how to use the act correctly.
When providing services local authorities should focus on meeting every individuals needs, rather than providing “one size fits all” service as this will not provide some individuals with the level of care that they require. Authorities should inform people of all their entitlements including financial advice to ensure that every individual has knowledge of the help they are entitled to meaning that they will not suffer unnecessarily. The Care Act helps to promote safeguarding as it ensures that local authorities inform individuals of their entitlements so they know what care they are able to claim, this helps to ensure someone that may be at harm of abuse will know where they can go to report this and resolve the issue to keep them safe. This is also the first ever act to mention Adult Safeguarding, ensuring that vulnerable adults are also catered for and services will be developed that will be more appropriate for them rather than a service that would be more useful used on a child. It also ensures that local authorities create services which will meet the need of every individual, this helps ensure that people form different backgrounds will be able to access the service and receive the most efficient and beneficial care from it rather than going through a one size fits all system as this will not benefit every individual. The Care Act means that councils must provide help when a person is “Moving from Children’s services to adults services” (HM Government (2014) The Care Act. Bury Saint Edmunds. Inspired Services Publishing Ltd.) This quote means that the council must provide help during the transition between children’s and adults services, they could do this by for example providing a acre plan to help them through the transition.
Within Safeguarding their are many values, principles and standards that work to promote it, these fit together to form well structured processes which develop the best outcomes for service users. One of these is confidentiality and information sharing. HM Government produced a document that provides guidance on confidentiality and information sharing, this guidance works to help practitioners make decisions related to information sharing to help reduce the risk of harm to children and young people and also that it promotes their well being. Within the guidance HM Government have developed seven golden rules to information sharing, each of these rules help provide a practitioner with the necessary instruction on how to make their decision, one of these rules are, “Remember that the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Data Protection Act 2018 and human rights law are not barriers to justified information sharing, but provide a framework to ensure that personal information about living individuals is shared appropriately.” (HM Government (2018) Information Sharing. Information Policy team, the national archives, Kew, London, TW9 4DU) This means that the legislation in place to help support information sharing is not the final decision on a matter regarding confidentiality but a set of instructions that help provide guidance in making a decision and that they can be used in different ways for different situations. Another example of these is Whistleblowing, ”Whistleblowing” is the reporting by employees of suspected misconduct or illegal acts that may be being performed by another member of staff or group of staff, this for example could be abuse or neglect of a patient/client. The aim of these policies is to encourage employees and others who have serious concerns about any aspect of potential abuse taking place to come forward and report their concerns to help stop the abuse as soon as possible. Whistleblowing is made to be seen as a positive thing and you will not be negatively impacted if you report a concern as it's in the interest of a person's safety. Whistleblowing policies work to try and convince employees to report anything they deem suspicious, so that it can be investigated to help try and prevent harm to another a person especially those who are vulnerable and may not be able to report it themselves. These policies closely link to the key issue of prevention of abuse within safeguarding as they work to make sure that any abuse within a workplace is stopped. Another example of this would be Empowerment, empowerment is what safeguarding provides a person with as it helps them to feel safe and secure in their environment, for example if a person is being physically and emotionally abused by their partner, safeguarding procedures would be put in place by a practitioner in the hope of keeping the person being abused away from their partner, this will work to provide the person with empowerment to make their own decisions in life and live independently, without the fear of being abused. Safeguarding empowers people as it helps provide a service user with trust into health and social care services by providing procedures which help to stop abuse within these environments such as care homes, this is also beneficial as it also helps service users families as it provides them with peace of mind that the loved one is safe and safeguarding procedures are in place to protect them.
Bibliography-
dictionary.com, 2018. Safeguard. <https://www.dictionary.com/browse/safeguard?s=t> (accessed 26.11.18)
Hampshire Safeguarding Adults Board, 2015. Prevention and Early intervention in Adult Safeguarding. <http://www.hampshiresab.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/HSAB-Guidance-on-Prevention-and-Early-Intervention-in-Safeguarding2.pdf> (accessed 29.11.18)
HM Government (2014) The Care Act. Bury Saint Edmunds. Inspired Services Publishing Ltd.
HM Government (2018) Information Sharing. Information Policy team, the
national archives, Kew, London, TW9 4DU