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The moving and handling of people is a regular task in health and social care, which if not done safely, can cause serious injury to service users and staff. These pages concentrate on reducing the risk from people handling. For general information on factors that can lead to injury, visit the musculoskeletal disorder web pages. For further information on risk assessments for inanimate/object handling please see the manual handling web pages.
What the law says;
The following legislation may be relevant for assessing moving and handling risks:
Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 (HSWA)
Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 (MHOR) (as amended 2002)
Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999
Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER)
Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 (LOLER)
To learn more about Moving & Handling Support why not enrol on our course to enhance your knowledge. Please contact us for information on how to signup
When preparing to administer any drug to a client, consider what is often referred to as the "Six Rights" of medication administration:
Right client
Right route
Right drug
Right dose
Right time
Right documentation
Don't forget to administer the drug to the client first, and then document. Documenting beforehand is considered falsification of documentation and is a violation of the nurse practice act.
NICE has also produced guidelines on managing medicines in care homes and home care for older people.
To learn more about Medication Support why not enrol on our course to enhance your knowledge. Please contact us for information on how to signup
Fire can present a danger in any home but is especially risky for elderly folk who are not particularly mobile.
Fire and smoke alarms
If a fire breaks out, it’s important that elderly residents are aware of it as soon as possible to give them sufficient time to escape. Make sure you are trained to check for smoke alarms in your clients homes and that they know how to test them each week. If the resident is hard of hearing, special flashing alarms should be fitted.
Emergency contact
It is advised to have a fully-charged mobile or portable phone handset next the elderly resident’s bed at night. In the event of a fire, the person will be able to quickly summon assistance.
Make sure that your client knows how to use the phone and programme in important numbers such as neighbours, the emergency services, and their own
Make sure that exits are safe and clear
It is very important you and the client can get out of the house quickly in the event of a fire. Make sure that there is a key handy for bedroom window locks and any security bars that are in place must have an easily operable emergency release device fitted.
Check that windows are not stuck shut with paint, which can be an issue in old properties with timber window frames. If the windows are stuck or are nailed shut, take action to have them released as soon as possible.
For more information about fire safety, please click here
To learn more about Fire Safety why not enrol on our course to enhance your knowledge. Please contact us for information on how to signup
As a care worker you’ll support people with all aspects of their day to day living, including social and physical activities, personal care, mobility and meal times. Care workers can work in a care home, in people’s own homes or in the community. Care workers who work in the community are sometimes called domiciliary carers which often involves travelling to different people’s houses.
The kinds of duties that might be expected to cover:
Providing care and support, working in a person centred way, communicating well, building relationships and promoting equality and diversity
Working as part of a team, being a supportive team member and developing your skills to improve your work
Contributing to activities in a safe way, keeping and filing clear records, keeping to regulations, following the agreed way of working
Respecting confidentiality by not discussing any personal information on individuals or staff with unauthorised people, and storing records securely.
To learn more about Understanding your Role why not enrol on our course to enhance your knowledge. Please contact us for information on how to signupPlease contact us for information on how to signup
Before you can start to actively promote equality and diversity within a health and social care setting, it is important to understand what they mean:
Equality – Ensuring that all service users can access the same opportunities regardless of their lifestyle, ability or background
Diversity – Demonstrating respect for individual beliefs, values, cultures and lifestyles and appreciating difference
Everyone should have access to the support and care that they need regardless of their individual circumstances. Staff within the health and social care sector has a duty to promote equality and diversity across all areas of their work, providing a service that is fair, personalised and diverse.
Equality and diversity are key components in the delivery of quality health and social care services and good practice should encourage and promote these values as much as possible. A health and social care worker should ensure that through their work, service users are treated fairly and equally and each service user they are responsible for is treated with dignity and respect. Equality and diversity should never be viewed as a bonus in terms of service delivery; it should be an integral part of service planning
To learn more about Equality & Diversity why not enrol on our course to enhance your knowledge. Please contact us for information on how to signup
Person-centred care is a way of thinking and doing things that sees the people using health and social services as equal partners in planning, developing and monitoring care to make sure it meets their needs. This means putting people and their families at the centre of decisions and seeing them as experts, working alongside professionals to get the best outcome.
Person-centred care is not just about giving people whatever they want or providing information. It is about considering people’s desires, values, family situations, social circumstances and lifestyles; seeing the person as an individual, and working together to develop appropriate solutions. Being compassionate, thinking about things from the person’s point of view and being respectful are all important. This might be shown through sharing decisions with patients and helping people manage their health, but person-centred care is not just about activities. It is as much about the way professionals and patients think about care and their relationships as the actual services available.
To learn more about Person Centred Care why not enrol on our course to enhance your knowledge. Please contact us for information on how to signup
It is important to be clear about who the formal adult safeguarding process applies to. The Care Act statutory guidance defines adult safeguarding as
‘Protecting an adult’s right to live in safety, free from abuse and neglect. It is about people and organisations working together to prevent and stop both the risks and experience of abuse or neglect, while at the same time making sure that the adult’s wellbeing is promoted including, where appropriate, having regard to their views, wishes, feelings and beliefs in deciding on any action. This must recognise that adults sometimes have complex interpersonal relationships and may be ambivalent, unclear or unrealistic about their personal circumstances.’
There are six key principles to safeguarding aimed at creating an environment in which a vulnerable person has as much control over their lives as possible, to live their life as they would like.
The six principles are:
Empowerment – people are supported to make their own decisions and have control over their lives
Prevention – informing people about abuse, what to look for and how to report it
Proportionality – supporting the person without being over-protective
Protection – providing support for those in most need
Partnership – services working together, helping to detect any indicators of abuse
Accountability – everyone knows their roles and responsibilities and abides by these
To learn more about Safeguarding Adults why not enrol on our course to enhance your knowledge. Please contact us for information on how to signup
In order to receive safe and effective care, infection control and prevention must be part of everyday practice and be applied consistently by everyone.
The purpose of infection control is to reduce the occurrence of infectious diseases. These diseases are usually caused bybacteria or viruses and can be spread by human to human contact, animal to human contact, human contact with aninfected surface, airborne transmission through tiny droplets of infectious agents suspended in the air, and, finally, by suchcommon vehicles as food or water.
Infections, particularly those known as ‘health care acquired infections’ (HCAI or HAI) (which means that patients/clients acquire the infection while receiving care from health services), are one of the biggest challenges facing health services throughout the world.
Our job as health care workers is to do everything we can to reduce passing (or ‘transmitting’) infection to patients, and from one patient to another. In this section, we’ll look at some of the things we can do to help us avoid transmitting germs and therefore preventing infection – what we call ‘standard infection control precautions’.
Standard infection control precautions include personal protective equipment and waste streams, which we will look at in this section. But central to standard infection control precautions is hand hygiene. It sounds very simple, but there’s no doubt that learning how to perform hand hygiene and making sure you wash your hands ‘as you should, when you should’ are the most important things you can do to combat HCAI.
Getting a flu vaccination can help. Flu can be a serious illness, particularly for the elderly or those with other health conditions. Care workers are working with some of the most vulnerable people in our communities, so it’s important that they help protect themselves and those receiving care and support against flu
To learn more about Infection Control why not enrol on our course to enhance your knowledge. Please contact us for information on how to signup
Dementia is a progressive disease which gradually destroys an individual’s ability to make sense of the world around them. There are currently around 750,000 people in England living with dementia and this figure is expected to grow further as a consequence of the ageing population.
How to identify dementia is a good place to start and explains what to look out for in those you support that could mean they have dementia and what you need to do to help them. The sooner someone gets a diagnosis, the sooner they and their families can get the best help.
To learn more about Dementia Awareness why not enrol on our course to enhance your knowledge. Please contact us for information on how to signup