This assignment will discuss how legislation, policies and procedures relating to health, safety and security influence health and social care settings like an hospital and how health and safety legislation, policies and procedures promote the safety of individuals inside of the health and social care setting.
Legislation
‘A law or set of laws suggested by a government and made official by a parliament.’- http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/legislation
Policies
‘A course or principle of action adopted or proposed by an organization or individual’ (in this case it’s the government) - http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/policies-and-procedures.html
Procedures
‘A fixed, step-by-step sequence of activities or course of action (with definite start and end points) that must be followed in the same order to correctly perform a task’ -http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/procedure.html#ixzz3J1uQRztu
The Health and Safety at Work Act etc. 1974(HASAWA) is the main piece of legislation that covers health and safety regulations; it was designed to help reduce the accidents within a work place. It is responsible for making a number of safety acts that are relevant to working environment; every workplace is covered by this law. In all health and social care settings HASAWA places a commitment on everyone whether it’s the staff, the service users or the service users’ friends and family that visit them. In a health and social care setting like a hospital HASAWA helps in many ways for everyone that uses it. Staff work long, hard hours and are constantly on their feet attending to all the service users so the first thing they’re going to need is comfortable footwear, they’re not going to want to wear uncomfortable big shoes for 12 hours as it could cause them all sorts of problems so HASAWA has given the nurses a specific footwear to wear so they don’t have any problems. The footwear which was chosen is light, thin and has plenty of room so it isn’t tight on their feet, this prevents accidents because not only will it stop the staff from getting any harm to their feet but their shoes also have a firm grip on them so when they’re rushing around there isn’t any risk of a slip hazard. HASAWA also said that staff need breaks so they set a law that staff must at least have a ten minute break because if they work for so many hours and don’t have a break it could lead to all sorts of hazards not only physical but mental as well. It will cause the staff all sorts of mental health problems like stress and other mental illnesses so HASAWA made this rule to prevent the risk of accidents. HASAWA’s policies and procedures are: provide and maintain safety equipment and safe systems of work; ensure materials used are properly stored, handled, used and transported; provide information, training, instruction and supervision; provide a safe working environment; provide a safe place of employment; provide a written safety/policy risk assessment and look after the health and safety of others i.e. the public. The staff must follow all these and more policies and procedures to ensure that everything is completely safe. They can come up with ways to improve on their working system but having frequent staff meetings and discussions so they build relationships with each other and work better as a team. They also need to make sure they have a positive attitude when working because this helps things flow well and makes them more efficient. So in a health and social care setting like a hospital the staff must work fluently as a team not only so they are all doing well in their jobs but for safety of everyone in the hospital because for example if they didn’t follow the policy like ‘ensuring all material used are properly stored’ if the staff never followed this then someone may leave bleach out in a normal bottle and one of the children could mistake it as a drink and drink it so they need to follow these procedures and policies to
