Explain what is meant by Safeguarding?
Safeguarding is ensuring the safety of an individual’s health and wellbeing and protected from harm and danger with an appropriate measure. It implies protecting people’s health, wellbeing, and human rights hence enabling them to live a life that is free from harm, abuse, or any kind of negligence. Safeguarding, therefore, remains to be the key part of providing quality and social healthcare. Safeguarding in healthcare is closely related to health and social care and hence the need to ensure that there are possible measures and strategies taken to protect individuals, which must not be excessive. For instance, if you are intending to safeguard someone, ensure that the person is enjoying his/her rights because taking away the freedoms or denying them a chance to participate in other chores will be totally depriving off their rights, which may affect their wellbeing both mentally and socially.
Explaining how safeguarding:
Keeps individuals safe
There are various ways in which Safeguarding helps to keep individuals safe in health and social care. The first one is that it prevents them from coming to harm. From this particular perspective, Safeguarding acts as a guideline within the healthcare sector where it is a potential to stop any harm that an individual can come across and guiding them to deal with various risks appropriately. The other possible way in which Safeguarding keeps individuals safe is finding risks and managing them appropriately. Safeguarding helps in identifying various risks that may affect employees as they work in organizations. Hence Safeguarding can help to minimize such. The other way in which Safeguarding helps in keeping individuals safe is through supporting them based on their own needs. In healthcare organizations, every employee may come from a diverse background meaning that they may have a different lifestyle, a factor that should be put into consideration. Hence, by working to stop or minimize the risks that may be present, the care worker can keep people safe as much as possible.
Valuing individual’s needs
Safeguarding means that each person in healthcare is handled uniquely based on the fact that every individual has different needs. Therefore, Safeguarding is a person-centered approach, where the needs of every individual are treated separately from everyone, despite the techniques being standard. The other way in which safeguarding values individual needs is giving them the right to have input in what they require. Also, Safeguarding should allow freedom and a higher quality of life. Every person is therefore entitled to be protected, and their rights should not be imposed upon under any conditions.
Protect Individuals
Safeguarding should be a process where there should be a close relationship with those that one cares so as to establish a more informed care plan. This will enable one to meet the individual’s needs because of the teamwork. This is through allowing the person receiving care to have input into what they need and ensure that they are fully protected as it will meet the needs of every individual. This will also allow them to make their own choices, assess the risks, and ensure they have a say on the care they receive.
Explain how health and social care practitioners can take steps to safeguard themselves
Having a mutual agreement with those individuals who need to be protected before setting up safeguarding practices can assist in effective implementation. Therefore, to protect you from any form of resistance, the following policies should be the first step. This will ensure that you are acting within the framework requirements. Hence, Safeguarding should not be blamed at any point because the right procedures were followed. The second step is to ensure that the practitioners are accompanied where possible, where al clients must be involved. Therefore, isolation of the major participants may lead to resistance. The other step that health and social care practitioners can take is to gain the consent of those they care for. It is always a good idea to get the consent of those that they care for, through a means that will ensure maximum care is offered. The other step to consider is to ensure that staff ratios are appropriate where the staffing is at a suitable level, thus reducing the mistakes made. The last step is to work to high standards at all times, and honesty and integrity. Integrity and honesty is always the main issue behind any successful implementation.
Understand how to safeguard individuals in relation to legislation, policies, and procedures
Summarise current legislation in relation to Safeguarding
The health care and social act 2008 (regulated activities) regulation 2014
This act outlines various areas of concern that guides practitioners to work and change the focus of certain individuals to ensure the quality of care. The various actions include giving voice for patients, where patients are in a position to choose the services, and increasing the range of support. The other one is that ensuring accountability in Safeguarding, which involves setting out legislation that requires practitioners to be accountable for their actions. Also, making the NHS more responsive, efficient, and accountable is another step, which involves cutting down some budget and streamlining services to save money. Lastly, making service providers innovative will involve doing away with some jobs. This will help them to innovate more in their roles
The care act of 2014
Various changes have been made in the new legislation on how people must provide care to the patients. It ascertains that Safeguarding is a very important consideration in healthcare, and they must work with them to provide quality services. The Care Act 2014 outline that every care must make inquiries and investigate any risk of abuse and set up the right levels of support and guidance for practitioners.
Sexual Offence Act of 2003
It is an act that protects individuals who are at risk of being sexually abused hence safeguarding them against any offenses in health and social care, which applies to everyone in the healthcare sector. Hence, the act ensures that individuals do not provide care without consent or engage in any sexual activity. It includes various things such as rape hence ensuring that they are completely eliminated from healthcare.
Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006
This is an act that protects individuals who are classed as vulnerable in the health and social care sector. It covers people with mental problems, physical impairment, or any other form of disability. Hence, the vulnerable individuals require additional protection, and therefore with Safeguarding, the abusive individuals may not be offered jobs to protect other people.
Describe the relationship between legislation, policy, and procedure
There is always a close relationship that exists between legislation, policy, and procedure. The first one is that policies and procedures must always adhere to the legislation in place. In this category, policies and procedures are the ones that an organization can have as guidance to its operations. Therefore, they all must adhere to the current legislation so as to be effective in application. The second relationship is that policies and procedures are in place in companies so that legislations are followed. The policies and procedures which are set by the company tend to guide it on how it should operate and deal with its workers. The main focus is to ensure that the operations are within the framework requirement of the legislation. For example, the Equality Act 2010 which aims at protecting people who have one or more protected characteristics.
Identify policies and procedures in relation to Safeguarding
Code of Conduct: In this category, guidance on appropriate and expected standards of behaviour of individuals towards others. Hence, behaviours that reveal poor practice should be avoided at all costs.
Child Protection Procedures: There is a need to promote child safety that is through prevention, identification, and reporting of child abuse and neglect. The child, therefore, must be free from any harm.
Missing Child Procedures: This policy requires that the police should be informed if the child returns home at their own accord, who then informs any other agency of the missing child.
Confidentiality Policies: This policy requires that any person-identifiable or confidential information must be on a need-to-know basis, which must be limited to that purpose on which it is required.
what to do if harm is disclosed/suspected: inform them that you will take what they are informing you seriously and you cannot keep it as a secret as you have a duty to protect them from harm and have active listening and be careful
Lines of reporting: the support and telephone lines for reporting any issue is open from Monday to Friday from 9 am -10 pm.
Sexual offences act 2003: It is an act that protects individuals who are at risk of being sexually abused hence safeguarding them against any offences in health and social care, which applies to everyone in the healthcare sector.
Safeguarding vulnerable group 2006: This is an act that protects individuals who are classed as vulnerable in the health and social care sector. It covers people with mental problems, physical impairment or any other form of disability
Mental capacity 2005: applies to everyone involved in the care, treatment, and support of people aged 16 and over living in England and Wales who are unable to make all or some decisions for themselves.