Duty of care is a fundamental principle in care settings, ensuring that individuals receive safe, ethical, and high-quality support. This unit explores the meaning of duty of care, its relationship with safeguarding, and its role in protecting individuals' rights to live free from abuse and neglect. It addresses potential conflicts between duty of care and individual rights, offering strategies to manage dilemmas effectively. Additionally, the unit highlights the importance of handling complaints, adverse events, and near misses to improve care quality. Through practical examples and guidance, this content equips care professionals with the knowledge and skills to uphold their responsibilities while promoting positive outcomes for individuals.
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Activity 55 - Explain The Meaning Of Duty Of Care In Own Work Role
While providing social care, the duty of care applies regardless of whether one is strategies to assist, educational, day provision, leisure, outreach, or domiciliary care. Individuals have a duty of care for one another in all social and professional contexts (Afifi et al., 2020). There is no way to opt out of a duty of care obligation.
Assessment Criteria 1.1
Activity 56 - Describe How Duty Of Care Relates To Duty Of Candour
As "duty of care" encompasses how people are helped when anything goes wrong with their care or treatment, it is related to "duty of candour." A service's dedication to the standards of excellence required by the duty of candour may be shown in the ways it handles risk, making sure people are secure and cared for, and creating a pleasant atmosphere for all.
Assessment Criteria 1.2
Activity 57 - Describe How Duty Of Care Contributes To The Safeguarding And Protecting Of An Individuals’ Right To Live In Safety And Be Free From Abuse And Neglect
To fulfil their duty of care, carers must operate in a reasonable manner, providing services that are consistent with the caregiver's experience, the service recipient's needs, and the standard of care in the field (Lilleheie et al., 2021). When someone owes a duty of care and the particular individual violates that responsibility in a way that causes the individual or someone else physical or mental harm, one has committed negligence.
Assessment Criteria 1.3
Activity 58 - Identify Potential Conflicts Or Dilemmas That May Arise Between The Duty Of Care And An Individual’s Rights
As everyone has their own unique perspective and lifestyle, disagreements are sometimes inevitable. Maintaining open lines of communication is essential for finding a solution to the problem and ensuring that the person's best interests are served, even if their choice is different from the one, they would choose. Problems arise when the person receiving care and the person providing care have different ideas about what is best for the person receiving care. As a result, the caretaker-client connection may be jeopardised.
Assessment Criteria 2.1
Activity 59 - Describe How To Work Effectively With Individuals And Others To Manage Conflicts And Dilemmas Related To Duty Of Care To Achieve Positive Outcomes For Individuals In Care Settings
Any documentation of care and assistance provided, including any determination of someone's ability and the reasoning behind any choices made on their behalf, should be kept current and correct. To neither delegate nor accept work from others until it is obvious that both the delegator and the delegate possess the necessary skills and abilities to complete the tasks at hand.
Assessment Criteria 2.2
Activity 60 - Describe Where To Get Additional Support And Advice About Conflicts And Dilemmas
An impartial advocate might be recruited to fight for the client's best interests. An advocate can help a patient feel heard and, on their side, if they and their care team have competing priorities (Amoako et al., 2021). Investigate any dangers to health and safety throughout treatment, and verify that the carers possess the necessary training and expertise to ensure the wellbeing.
Assessment Criteria 2.3
Activity 61 - Outline Own Role In Listening And Responding To Comments And Complaints In Care Settings
1. Disclosures are only shielded if they are done in accordance with the right processes and with no malicious intent.
2. Dangers to one's well-being or safety.
3. For the purposes of the whistle blower protection law, self-employed persons who are overseen or who perform work away from their main place of business may be deemed employees (Kostić and Bošković, 2022).
4. If a whistle blower follows the proper protocol, they and their career will be safe.
Assessment Criteria 3.1
Activity 62 - Explain The Main Points Of Agreed Procedures For Handling Comments And Complaints In Care Settings
Care providers' records are admissible as evidence in judicial proceedings. The carer must promptly turn over any documentation they have created to the proper authority. It is critical that only objective facts, rather than speculation or personal judgment, be included in a patient's medical file. Every documentation must be true and legible (Emanuel and Boyle, 2021). A person's life may be drastically altered by the data maintained in their medical records.
Assessment Criteria 3.2
Activity 63 - Explain The Importance Of Empowering Individuals And Others To Express Their Comments And Complaints In Care Settings
Both the health care and social service sectors require a formal complaints policy and process. A copy of this policy and practice should be given to each patient or customer, and another copy might be posted in a common place like the reception area (Miller et al., 2020). Complaints may be reduced if the care team actively seeks out feedback from patients, family members, and other stakeholders, and acts in a transparent, responsive, and proactive manner.
Assessment Criteria 3.3
Activity 64 - Outline What Are Considered To Be Adverse Events, Incidents, Errors And Near Misses
1. Negative occurrences may occur when a complaint is not properly addressed or when a person expresses a desire to take risks but is met with indecision.
2. An error might occur when a person fails to perform the necessary action or when they incorrectly apply a procedure.
3. Accidents that almost went wrong but did not because of fast thinking, good fortune, or the intervention of another person are examples of near misses.
Assessment Criteria 4.1
Activity 65 - Explain How To Recognise, Report, And Respond To Adverse Events, Incidents, Errors And Near Misses
The Control of Substances Dangerous to Health Regulations 2002 mandates that businesses evaluate the hazards posed by compounds kept or used on-site and implement appropriate safety measures (Ostad-Ali-Askari, 2022). Even if the individual cannot pinpoint a single cause for what happened, understanding the conditions that led up to it can help us prevent it from happening again.
Assessment Criteria 4.2
Activity 66 - Describe How Own Role In Recognising And Responding To Adverse Events, Incidents, Errors And Near Misses Can Prevent Further Occurrences And Improve Quality Of Care
Employees have an obligation to report honestly any unfavourable happenings, mishaps, blunders, or near-misses that they may have witnessed. Analysing the findings of investigations into accidents, incidents, mistakes, and near misses, thinking deeply about what went down, and working to increase industry standards are all necessary steps towards preventing such events in the future.
Please list your sources of information in the box below. This includes anywhere you have accessed to gain the information required to answer the questions. At level 3 and above, it is expected that you read widely, and we would recommend that you include at least 3 References. These can be any books you have read, websites you have accessed or the NCC materials. Please try to reference according to Harvard. For help with this, please visit the following website: https://www.ncchomelearning.co.uk/referencing
If you have gained information from other sources, please ensure that this has been referenced and written in your own words. Plagiarised work will not be accepted, and your work could be checked at any point throughout the course. If in doubt, please check your work using a plagiarism checker.
Afifi, M.A., Kalra, D., Ghazal, T.M. and Mago, B., 2020. Information technology ethics and professional responsibilities. International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology, 29(4), pp.11336-11343.
Emanuel, E.J. and Boyle, C.W., 2021. Assessment of length and readability of informed consent documents for COVID-19 vaccine trials. JAMA network open, 4(4), pp.e2110843-e2110843.\
Kostić, J. and Bošković, M.M., 2022. Recommendations for Overcoming Challenges of Whistleblowing in Public Procurement Procedures. Journal of the University of Latvia. Law, 15, pp.57-69.
Lilleheie, I., Debesay, J., Bye, A. and Bergland, A., 2021. The tension between carrying a burden and feeling like a burden: a qualitative study of informal caregivers’ and care recipients’ experiences after patient discharge from hospital. International journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being, 16(1), p.1855751.
Miller, S., Gilbert, S., Virani, V. and Wicks, P., 2020. Patients’ utilization and perception of an artificial intelligence–based symptom assessment and advice technology in a British primary care waiting room: exploratory pilot study. JMIR human factors, 7(3), p.e19713.
Ostad-Ali-Askari, K., 2022. Management of risks substances and sustainable development. Applied Water Science, 12(4), p.65.