Assessment Description
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How personal values and the principles contribute to the work in the health and social care settings
How personal values and the principles contribute to the work in the health and social care settings
Introduction
This essay will provide an overview of the influence of the individual’s personal values and the principles and how do they contribute to the work in the health and social care settings. This essay will also discuss the impact of new development and changes to the personal values of the work in the health and social care. Moreover this essay will also assess that how the personal culture and experience may influence the own roles of the supporting users of the services in health and social care settings.
Contents
Personal values and principles include Respect, dignity, confidentiality etc. We will start with confidentiality. Confidentiality is very much important in the health and social care settings. Since it seems quite complex, this is why it leads to misapplication and misunderstanding. The health and social care sectors also lays emphasis in order to train their employees in such a way so that they can maintain a high level of confidentiality in the organization.
In health care settings the word confidentiality relates to the personal information of patients. The main problem in the health care sector arises when the administration has to decide the mode of communication of this information among the core staff members. The aim of the confidential care service is to protect the information of their patients and to restrict unauthorized access to it (Craig, 2011).
This is why to make this process easy the health care units informs all the consumers about the information that is being procured for them and how will they use it. But the matter of confidentiality becomes tedious at times when the patients refuse to provide their consent for the use of their information.
The dignity is primarily to human conditions and it is a function of human reasons. This is a fundamental concept of the Universal Declaration of human Rights and the Medical Association International of code of Medical Ethics. When the people are in urgent need of health and social care services, the people are in the most of the danger of losing their dignity and self respect. The people who are most vulnerable are in the need for the health care services and such times respect for dignity is particularly important.
Dignity is equally essential for all those who are on the front line and those running health care organizations. The only thing that they need to understand is that what they mean when they say “dignity in care”. However the concept of dignity has different connotations to different consumers of the health services. The older and vulnerable people who are left in pain, ignored, or distressed by a lack of privacy emerge so often they cannot be dismissed as isolated cases. This makes it clear that many older people suffer routine lapses of dignity in care (HSJ, 2009).
Thus in order to improve the health and social care settings, it is important to maintain the dignity of older people who are consuming health and social care services. In order to maintain dignity of older people the health care units are required to assess and evaluate the health care settings using the these criteria. Help the Aged research has identified nine important criteria: autonomy and choice; communication; eating and nutrition; end of life care; pain management; personal care; personal hygiene, bathing and using the toilet; privacy; and social inclusion.
Thus, respect and dignity are two major components while evaluating the services of health and social care settings. If the consumers or the patients are being treated kindly as opposed to being treated rudely then they would definitely exhibit a positive response in relation and this appears to have a marked influence on the eventual health-related outcomes.
It is clear that being treated with dignity, as well as being involved in decisions are factors that are both independently associated with positive clinically relevant outcomes (Nelson, et al., 2009). If the patients are involved in the process of decision making then it can also become an important element of respecting a patient’s autonomy; it is also of great importance to respect patients more broadly by ensuring that they are treated with dignity.
The culture may influence the working of health and social care settings. The cultural issues are related to the issues regarding culture, race, gender, and sexual orientation. If a nurse wants to become a cultural competent server then she is required to achieve the ability to effectively work within the cultural context of an individual, family, or community from a diverse cultural/ethnic background (Waine, et al., 2005).
An individual who belongs to a particular cultural background is not similar to the other. A person’s identity is also shaped by, among other things, their own personality, education, family experience, socioeconomic status and life experience (Health, 2012). Thus it is important to be aware of the sensitive and cultural backgrounds of the individuals in the health care sectors because it is likely that in all units there are several staff members who belongs to different cultural groups and thus it is important to understand the needs of each every individual.
While working in the organization, every staff member experiences different situations in the health care settings. For example if the staff member belongs to a specific culture and understands a particular language then it would create problems for an outsider if he enters into the organization. He would have to experience problems related to communication and accessibility.
Moreover, he may also experience the problems related to the diet and medicines provided by the organization. For instance if the consumer of the services belongs to the cultural group where there is a ban on taking alcohol, then this would create a problem for him.
Also the gender, age and education also influence the working with people in the heath care settings. They might have to experience such situations in which they are required to treat people of opposite sex/gender or who older than them and are unable to communicate because of the lack of knowledge and education.
There are also certain situations where life events and death are involved. Thus it is required for every staff member to comply with such situations and does not get emotionally attached to such situations (Redding, 2012). Instead they need to be trained to withstand during the situations of death and life events so that they could easily manage with such times.
Legislations and Policies
Data protection Act 1998: the data protection act was formulated in 1998 in the UK was enacted to protect the information to the consumers of the heath and social care settings and to keep that information confidential. The information which is disclosed by a patient to a doctor is regarded as confidential and can be passed to someone else only with the patient’s consent for a particular purpose or if the recipient of the information is concerned with the patient’s care and treatment. The information can also be transferred to a third person only on order of court or is required by the statute.
As per this legislation, if the information is shared, there is an implied understanding that the information will not be used except where it is strictly needed to help the professional provide the service. Each member of the team, and any person who provides administrative or secretarial support, has an obligation to treat the information as confidential (Health, 2000).
Equality Act 2010: this act was brought into effect in October 2010 in order to protect the people from being discriminated against cultural issues such as race, sex, disability, religion, age, sexual orientation etc. It also strengthens the law in certain situations, including increased protection for disabled people, and new measures protecting carers of disabled or elderly people.
While formulating Equality Act 2010, it was proposed that there should be no specific exceptions in health and social care. However they could can continue to treat people differently because of their age but are required to to show, if challenged, that there is a good reason (“objective justification”) for that different treatment. The main aim of adding this approach was to ensure that high quality, dignified and compassionate care services are provided on the basis of need (Crown, 2010).
Conclusion
After discussing each and every aspect of the requirement of confidentiality, dignity and respect it would not be wrong to say that these three components are very important in the working for the health and social care settings. The privacy of every individual is essential for every individual thus it is the prime duty of every heath care unit to protect the information of every individual and keep it confidential. Moreover the dignity has to be considered primarily from the patient’s or client’s perspective. People need to be listened to and understood in terms of what is important to them. Thus every individual wants his privacy to be respected and time to build relationships with nursing staff members. When dignity and respect are absent from care, people feel devalued, lack control and comfort. They may feel humiliated, embarrassed and ashamed and are unable to make decisions for themselves because of lack of confidence among them.
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