Introduction
Human rights play a fundamental role in shaping ethical, legal, and professional practice within health and social care settings. They provide a framework that ensures individuals are treated with dignity, equality, and respect, regardless of their background or circumstances. In healthcare, the protection of human rights is not limited to legal obligations but extends to everyday practices such as ensuring adequate nutrition, hydration, autonomy, and access to appropriate care. These rights are closely linked to the quality and safety of services delivered to patients and service users.
This reflective essay explores my understanding of human rights within health and social care based on experiences gained during my professional training. Using Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle, the essay critically examines my initial perceptions, emotional responses, learning outcomes, and future action plans related to human rights practice. Key legislation and frameworks, including the Human Rights Act 1998, NHS values (FREDA), and international human rights principles, are discussed to highlight their relevance in professional decision-making. Through this reflection, the essay demonstrates how a deeper understanding of human rights has influenced my approach to care, strengthened my ethical awareness, and shaped my commitment to delivering patient-centred and rights-based healthcare practice.
Reflective essay on Human Rights
Description
In the context of health and social care, human rights have come out to be substantial portion of my professional practice at the time of my training. In the beginning stage, my knowledge was limited to the thought that human rights merely cover legal guidelines formulated to safeguard people from discrimination as well as abuse. Although, after comprehending more regarding the inferences of human rights legislations and also treaties, I got to know that such rights are more than just legal guard. The human rights are very much related to actual crux of autonomy, equality and dignity within the health and social care. At the time of my training, I also learned about Gibbs Reflective Cycle, which offered me a systematic approach in order to imitate my experiences within health and social care domain. This model assisted me to process my thoughts and feeling and analyse the social, legal, and ethical inferences of healthcare activities on rights of human (Sundgren et al, 2021).
Feelings
At the starting phase, I was stunned and felt dazed because of the complication of human rights and also their application within healthcare backgrounds. The impression that the right to health of patient can be breached in something as seen easy as not confirming proper nourishment or hydration has been disconcerting. Beforehand, I had not linked these basic requirements to the human rights agenda. The point that the expiries because of dehydration or malnutrition can be termed as breach of human rights, made me review my knowledge in relation to human rights.
Though, as I begin imitating on my learning I start feeling confident as well as empowered. I started to comprehend that the human rights concept is nonconcrete, however are vital to the manner in which care must be offered. The significance of dignity and autonomy within health and social care environment become highly deceptive to me. Due to this, I felt like having a duty or accountability to confirm that the patients get the quality care and also their human rights are appropriately and adequately maintained, irrespective of their status, situation or background.
Evaluation
One of the chief areas I learnt about was the National Health Service (NHS) and also its part in maintaining human rights. The NHS encourages values like fairness; respect; equality; dignity; and autonomy (FREDA). Such morals or values act as a director for professional in the healthcare field, in order to offer great are and at the same time also give respect to the patient rights (Harrison et al, 2021). In addition, I also acquired knowledge triple duty which the healthcare offers pursue within human rights agreements or treaties, which include to safeguard, meet and respect the individual’s rights. Such understanding allowed me to critically evaluate the activities in the healthcare backgrounds, mainly where the rights of humans might have been disregarded, like in instances of dehydration and malnutrition within clinics. Also, I learned that it is very important for the healthcare offers to comprehend as well as perform application of human rights values in day-to-day communications with the patients.
Moreover, the most important learning from such experience during my professional practice was acquiring the knowledge that knowing about the human rights is not just associated with legal guard. Rather it is also related to the practical quality care which maintains dignity of an individual. A significant example of it is Human Rights Act 1998, especially Article 2, The Right to Life (Ridwan, Umar, and Harun, 2021). The statistics representing deaths in healthcare setting due to malnutrition and dehydration emphasize on a critical gap among the ethical and legal responsibilities of healthcare professionals as well as their definite practices (National Institutes of Health (NIH)(.gov), 2025),
Something which went well within my learning during my professional practice was clarity offered through the human rights guidelines and agendas. For example, NHS constitution, and also the way such guidelines underscore the crucial principles and values of care. Furthermore, comprehending the main role of laws such as Health and Social Care Act 2008 and Equality Act 2010, in maintaining non-discrimination, fairness and equality within the health and social care was informative (ageUK, 2025)
In contrast, the highly challenging facet was learning about the applications of rights of human in daily clinical activities. Human rights must be something beyond theoretical principles, they need to be integrated in day to day routine as well as in decision making procedures. Additionally, the healthcare professional, particularly within setting which are resource strained, might find it tough to maintain the balance between quality care demand and restraints of obtainable resources. This come up with a question that how the ‘Right to Health’ as expressed within the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and Universal Declaration of Human Rights, could be understood in practice, particularly within public sector.
Analysis
The link among the health and social care and human rights is something more than law and theory; that is an imitation of the healthcare mechanism’s standards. As uttered within international human rights treaties and World Health Organisation Constitution, the Right to Health is increasingly attainable. This refers to the understanding of such rights relies on the obtainable resource, as well as the strides made by the state. Being a signatory towards the ICESCR, the UK has a duty to maintain the right to health. Although, the growing demand of the healthcare facilities and the confines of the NHS constitution challenges such ideal.
Moreover, the highly noteworthy perception from my learning has been implementation of human rights into health and social care is not merely related to adhering to the laws, though also developing an atmosphere where fairness, respect and dignity are vital to quality care supply. For instance, the Right to Health should also cover the right to get access to healthcare facilities which avert infections and diseases, offer treatment and care, as well as provide needed medications. This involve each and everything from delivery of harmless water for drinking to confirming that the medical help is obtainable to all the people, irrespective of their social and economic situation. The main challenge in front of the healthcare provider is to uphold balance among their ethical responsibilities to give respect to individual’s rights with the actual restrains within the healthcare settings and mechanisms.
Ethical values like justice and autonomy should direct the decision within healthcare setting, although such values can occasionally struggle because of the lack of resource, demand of patients and also high-pressure working conditions. Additionally, I also learned that the theory of planned behaviour can be utilised in order to examine vast range of health-driven behaviours, like physical activity, diet, as well as usage of dietary supplements. This theory assumes that the probability of a person getting involved in health behaviour, like daily exercise, is interconnected with the forte of their intention to involve in the behaviour (Mental Health and Physical Health (Including HIV/AIDS), 2025).
Conclusion
Building on my knowledge and learning during my professional practice, I have acquired an in-depth comprehension of the connection among the healthcare and the human rights. I have understood that human rights are very crucial in developing a care system or mechanism which encourages dignity, respect and quality for all the people. The human rights values are essential to the functioning of the healthcare providers and also it is important that such values are integrated continuously into the professional practice. Moreover, comprehending the Right to Health and also its increasing awareness has offered me a better viewpoint on the manner healthcare mechanisms must alter in order to fulfil the requirements of each and every individual. In addition, I have also learned that the human rights challenges within health and social care are not every time as direct as they seem. Healthcare providers require to comprehend their ethical and legal duties in order to confirm that the human rights of patients are maintained. This involves offering personalised care and taking decision which take into account the autonomy and the top interests of the patients.
Action plan
In my future professional practices, I strategize to additionally incorporate human rights values within my practice through giving priority to personalised or individualised care and also confirming that dignity of each and every patient is valued. I will make use of the perceptions I learned from comprehending human rights guidelines and agenda in order to give priority to patient’s rights, mainly in conditions in which the basic requirements are at a stage of being ignored, like nutrition, accessibility to treatment and care, and more. Moreover, I intend to endure to learn about the policies and laws associated with human rights, like Equality Act 2010, for improving understanding about the way there could be integrated in day-to-day activities. Further, I will be working on improving my communication skills, in order to make sure that I interact with the patients in a manner which values and respect their autonomy and engage them in decision making related to their own care and treatment. In the circumstance of restricted resources, I will try to take ethical and moral decisions which highlight rights of patients and also their wellness.
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References
Books and Journals
Harrison, R., Fischer, S., Walpola, R.L., Chauhan, A., Babalola, T., Mears, S. and Le-Dao, H., 2021. Where do models for change management, improvement and implementation meet? A systematic review of the applications of change management models in healthcare. Journal of healthcare leadership, pp.85-108.
Ridwan, M., Umar, H. and Harun, H., 2021. Study on human rights principles in the Medina Charter and its implementation in Indonesia. Indonesian Journal of Social Science Research, 2(2), pp.52-64.
Sundgren, M.K., Millear, P.M., Dawber, C. and Medoro, L., 2021. Reflective practice groups and nurse professional quality of life. TheAustralian Journal of Advanced Nursing, 38(4), pp.49-67.
ageUK, 2025. Online. Available through: < https://www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/work-learning/discrimination-rights/the-equality-act/>
National Institutes of Health (NIH)(.gov), 2025. Online. Available through: <https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6371146/>
Mental Health and Physical Health (Including HIV/AIDS). 2025. Online. Available through: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/theory-of-planned-behavior#:~:text=The%20Theory%20of%20Planned%20Behavior%20(TPB)%20postulates%20that%20the%20likelihood,to%20engage%20in%20the%20behavior.
