Description

Personal and Professional Development in Health and social care

BTEC HND in Health and Social Care

Coursework: Personal and Professional Development

LO1 Understand how personal values and principles influence individual contributions to work in health and social care settings

1.1 compare personal values and principles with the principles of support for working in health and social care

Personal values and principles determines the way we think, behave and how we deliver care to service users. (Martin, 2003). A value represents something that is precious to us and we do not want to lose. It encourages us to do certain things and to avoid others. In short, values control our behaviour and our responses to situations. (Thompson, 2005). Personal values are based on impacts of beliefs and inclinations, culture, political outlooks, interest and priorities. (Martin, 2003) They also include principles about how we should care for others. (Nolan, 2010)

Consequently, virtues like loyalty, perseverance, respect, dignity, honesty and equality are based on values. (Garnham, 2013). For example, if I hold the above values, I will treat service users as unique individuals, I will not be judgemental rather I will involve service users in decisions about their care and I allow them to make choices about their personal lives.

Nevertheless, there are principles of care (that is, professional values) that underpin the delivery of best possible care by care workers irrespective of their personal values, they are: individuality, rights, privacy, choice, independence, dignity, respect and partnership. (Sussex, Scourfield and Herne, 2008)

Professional care values are principles against which we can measure the quality of our service delivery and how we respond to the values of service users. Therefore as our personal values define who we are, our professional values that define the practitioner that we are. (Tee, Brown, and Carpenter, 2012).

Undeniably, personal values and professional values are often in sync with each other because most people go into the care sector because they are caring and its care values are already part of their personal values. Consequently, as most the professional care values are already part of one’s personal value, it is easy to act consistently with these professional values.

Check Guideline for Unit 4 PPD in health and social care

1.2 assess how personal culture and experience influence own role in supporting users of services and others in health and social care settings

We have noted that values are define who we are and so values have great impact on our contribution at work. For example, as a carer, if I subscribe to the value of equality and respect, I will make sure that each service user needs are met irrespective of the fact that some of the service users have a range of diseases. Furthermore, as respect is important to me, I will adopt a non-judgemental approach to meeting the needs of all service users no matter their condition.

Additionally, if I believe in confidentiality and professionalism, I will ensure that the personal details of these service users are kept in locked filing cabinet or on a password protected computer so that it can only be accessed by authorised staff. I will also make sure that I discuss their personal matters with authorised people in an appropriate place which is in line with care values and empowering for the service.

However to consistently act in line with my values and care values, I need to be aware of my values. This is because self-awareness is needed for reflective practice, and for providing better services to meet the service users’ needs.. (Burns and Bulman, 2000)

Similarly, professional care values also help me understand how I am expected to act so I can work to develop the habits of thought which will enable me to behave consistently with my professional values.

What is clear from above is that my values affect every area of my life and care organisation also have care values in place to ensure delivery quality care to the service users. In the final analysis, I must be aware of my values are and work to align them with the care values within health and social care setting.

HND Assignments

1.3 discuss how new developments and changes to personal values can impact on work in health and social care

New developments in legislations, priorities, targets, research, code of conducts and changes in my own values can impact on my working in health and social care in many ways. For instance, laws are decisions made by Parliament which must obeyed (Fisher, 2005), such as Human Rights Act 1998, Disability Discrimination Act 2005, the Data Protection Act 1998, Mental Health Act 2007, Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006, (Garnham, 2012). The Equality Act 2010 protects the rights of individuals especially “protected persons” and provides for equality of opportunities. (Nolan, 2011) This Act is important in care organisations as it ensures that the fundamental rights of service users are respected by care providers. (Hetherington and Rasheed, 2013).

Likewise, care organisations have policies, targets, and code of conduct in place which protects service users and staff as well as ensuring that a high quality service is upheld. Such policies include anti-discriminatory policies, Health and safety policies, and Equal opportunities policies. (Fisher, 2005). For example, complaints procedures ensures that care worker behalf professionally and informs the service users to the steps involved in complaining about their support. (Clarke, Riley and Dougherty, 2004).The importance of these policies is that they inform me of what is expected of me and how I can protect myself against unfair claims.

Changes in personal values also impact my work, (Tee, Brown, and Carpenter, 2012). For example, in my culture, maintaining eye contact is considered inappropriate, however being a multi-cultural environment I realised that not maintaining eye contact in most culture implies disinterest or dishonesty. Therefore, I started making conscious effort to maintain eye contact, which made service users feel at ease and more willing to communicate their needs. This has had a great impact on my work as I am in a better position to meet the needs of service users.

From the foregoing, it can be seen that new developments in legislations, priorities, targets, research, code of conducts and changes in my own values enables me to operate within a legal framework in delivery quality care to service users. (Walsh, 2005).

LO3 Understand the application of principles of professional engagement with users of health and social care services

3.1 explain the nature of different professional relationships in health and social care contexts

There is a dire need in modern public health need for people to work together. The need for shared responsibility and partnership between agencies, professionals, communities and individuals is fundamental to policy for multidisciplinary policy health. (Peckham, J, 2007 pg 55). This is because the nature of health and social care is such that, for many, the quality of the service received is dependent upon how effectively different professionals work together. (Barrett, G. 2005)

A multidisciplinary team is therefore a group of individuals either from the same discipline or from multiple practitioner background like doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, psychologists, pharmacists, administrative staff and social workers who are working together to produce products or deliver service. The team members play different roles between and within the time depending on the expertise and the need of the service user. Furthermore in line with the person centred approach as well as the safety of the service users, the service users as well as their carers are becoming very active members of such teams. (WHO, 2014)

For instance, in dealing with the case study, a 60 year old service user who has not been eating, is depressed, been abused by his past carers, visually impaired, suffered dementia, has lost motivation and often exhibits challenging behaviour, a team of carers, GPs, Occupational Therapists, Pharmacists, Nurses, Psychiatrists, social workers and police might all be involved.

The carer cares for the daily needs of the service user. She is aware of the needs and requirements of the service user, work with a care plan and also communicate with not only the service user but also the friends, family and other members of the multidisciplinary teams. The carer’s duty will also include helping the service user to feed as the service user said not eating. In addition, the carer will need to escalate any change in the behaviour of the service user to the supervisor or their representative. In this case the service user is said to be exhibiting challenging behaviour, this appears to be an issue that the carer needs to escalate to the supervisor.

The supervisor on the other hand, will then need to get in touch with the GP, and the GP will then see the service user and give prescriptions in addressing the medical condition of the service users. The pharmacists then dispenses the medicines for the use of the service user.

As the service user is said to be visually impaired, he may also be refer to a specialist low-vision. Here the health professionals can help the service user to understand his condition, cope with his diagnosis and point him to where he can get further help and support. (NHS, 2014)  In addition, a rehabilitation officer will also be involved in the care of this service user. The role of the rehabilitation officer is to provide the service user with the skills, confidence and equipment that he needs to re-order his life as he is visually impaired.

Furthermore, because of the loss of motivation and challenging behaviours of the service user, the GP may need to refer the service user to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist then assesses the state of mind of the service user and decide whether the service user needs to be sessioned and for how long the service user should be sessioned. A meeting of the multidisciplinary team must then be held before the service user can be seesioned. However, in order to keep things within a legal framework it is important to involve the police, who deals with the legal aspect of the situation.

Move over, throughout the care of this service user, the expertise of nurses is very crucial as they are present continually and essential to the success of the whole multidisciplinary team, in fact it is the clinical nurse who play the central role in providing a unifying force for the whole team and ensuring that the whole care process moves forward. (Depts.washington.edu, 2014)

Therefore, in order to actualise the benefits of multidisciplinary team working, it is important that members of the team work to promote and support the rights of aforementioned service user.

3.2 evaluate personal effectiveness in promoting and supporting the rights of the individual

As a care worker, it is important to know the health and social needs of the service user thereby becoming the custodian of the right of the service user. It is therefore important that a care worker defend the right of the service user by working in a way that promote and protect the right of the service users.

The care worker should empathise with the service user and work to promote the principle of support even when the service user is aware of those rights as it is in this case scenario where the service user has dementia and is visually impaired. The principle of case includes confidentiality of information, choice, safety, privacy and dignity.

Choices: Care worker should encourage service users to make choices, help them to stay in control of their lives and to feel good about themselves. With regard to this service users, it is important to find out why he is feeling depressed and is not eating and offer him alternatives if he is found not to be happy with services he is been given.

Privacy and dignity: It is important that the privacy and dignity of this service user respected even though he has dementia and he is visually impaired. For instance, it is important that care worker knock before entering the service user’s room. Furthermore, even though the service user is visually impaired effort must be made to help him stay as independent as possible in his particular situation.

The care worker should therefore protect the right of the service user by ensuring that there enough equipment to uphold these rights. For instance, the service user in the case scenario is visually impaired, therefore equipment for daily living, adaptations, talking books, braille and braille software should be made available to him.

Furthermore, it is important to apply the social model in addressing the needs of the service user by addressing the social condition of the service user and understanding that despite the service user’s disability (such as his visually impairment and dementia) he is still able to do something in life. For instance, it important to work with the service user in the scenario to determine why he is depressed and not eating. It is also important to think and implement activities that will help the service user live his life to the fullest instead of thinking that the use of medication will resolve all the issues with the service user as advocated by the medical model.

3.3 discuss ways to resolve issues encountered in professional relationships

However for team member to be able to demonstrate personal effectiveness in promoting and supporting the rights of the service users whilst working within the multidisciplinary team, there must be effective ways of resolving issues encountered as a result of working within such a team. These include professionalism, personality, and communication.

Professionalism: Conflicts may result because team members are from different professional background .Professionals working with the MDT therefore must reconcile the professional values and roles with the aims and objectives of the joint initiative, this is by ensuring that the outcomes for service users and carers are made explicit from the start. The effect of this is that team members are able to appreciate the benefits of team work to service users and are able to monitor progress routinely.

Communication: Lack of effective communication may lead to conflict, therefore team members must be willing and able to share information in a timely and appropriate fashion. It is therefore important to communicate a collective vision, built on a strong foundation of evidence-based thinking and staff involvement and engagement. The effect of this is that all the team members feel involved and they have a clear understanding of what they are collectively working towards. This way, team members are reassured that they are all pulling together in the same direction which in turn promote engagement and motivation.

Personality: Individual members of the team will have different personality and this may cause conflict within the MDT. However this can be resolved by the team members been more tolerant and adaptable.

Professional code: Different profession has their own code of practice and this may lead to friction within the MDT. However by producing a partnership working code of conduct which deals with principles, best practice and guidance for the MDT, then all team members likely to be treated more fairly and there is a clearer understanding of how things should be done by team.

From the above, we can see that in health and social care that multidisciplinary team with its emphasis on effective collaborative practice, can improve services for users as it reduces duplication, minimising gaps in service, enable knowledge to be shared freely. It is also beneficial to members of such team as allows for innovation in health and social care delivery, contributes to the wellbeing of the team members and enhances knowledge and understanding of other disciplines. Finally it beneficial to organisations and the government at large as it is cost effective. However, multidisciplinary collaboration is both a task to be achieved and a process to be managed. (Braye, S. & Preston-Shoot, M. 2003)

REFERENCES LIST

• Barrett, G. 2005) Interprofessional Working in Health and Social Care, Professional Perspectives, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
• Braye, S. and Preston-Shoot, M, (2003)Empowering practice in social care, Berkshire, Open University Press
• Burns, S. and Bulman, C. (2000). Reflective practice in nursing. Oxford: Blackwell
• Calpin, P, and Langridge, E. (2012) Level 5 diploma in leadership for health and social care, Cheltenham, Nelson Thornes
• Garnham, P. (2012). Health and Social Care, Pearson Education.
• Peckham, J , 2007 pg 55: Partnership working for public health in Public Health for the 21^st Century, New Perspectives on Policy, Participation and Practice, 2^nd Ed, Editors Orme, J. et al 2007, Berkshire, Open University Press
• washington.edu, (2014), Public Health Ethics: Ethical Topic in Medicine. [Online] Available at: <http://depts.washington.edu/bioethx/topics/public.html [Assessed 24/11/14>]
• Michie, V.2006 BTEC FIRST, Health and Social Care, Cheltenham, Nelson Thornes
• Martin, V. (2003), Leading change in health and social care, London: Routledge
• (NHS, 2013) available at http://www.nhs.uk/chq/pages/1126.aspx?categoryid=51 assessed 28/11/14
• NHS, 2014) End of life issues available at <http://www.nhs.uk/CarersDirect/guide/bereavement/Pages/Accessingpalliativecare.aspx assessed 24/11/2014>
• NCPC, 2014 Palliative Care Explained <http://www.ncpc.org.uk/palliative-care-explained assessed 23/11/2014>
• Nolan, Y. (2010), Health & social care (adults), Oxford: Heinemann
• Sussex, F., Scourfield, P. and Herne, D. (2008), Advanced health and social care for NVQ level 4 and foundation degree. Oxford: Heinemann
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• Thompson, N. (2005), Understanding social work, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan