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Empowering Users of Health and

Social Care


AC 1.1 Explain how current legislation and sector skills standards
influence organizational policies and practices for promoting and
maximizing the rights of users of health and social care services
Health legislation is necessary for protecting the
rights of people with disorders of any type, who are a
vulnerable section of society. They face stigma,
discrimination and marginalization in all societies, and
this increases the likelihood that their human rights
will be violated. Health legislation can provide a legal
framework for addressing critical issues such as the
community integration of persons with mental
disorders, the provision of care of high quality, the
improvement of access to care, the protection of civil
rights and the protection and promotion of rights in
other critical areas such as housing, education and
employment. Legislation can also play an important
role in promoting health and preventing from any type
of disorder.


Continued
Health legislation should be viewed as a process
rather than as an event that occurs just once in many
decades. This allows it to be amended in response to
advances in the treatment of mental disorders and to
developments in service delivery systems. However,
frequent amendments to legislation are not feasible
because Of the time and financial resources required
and the need to consult all stakeholders.
A possible solution is to lay down regulations that are
separate from legislation but can be enforced through
it. Legislation can include provision for the
establishment of regulations and can outline the
procedure for modifying them. The most important
advantage of regulations is that they do not require
lawmakers to be repeatedly voting for amendments.
Continued
In some countries, executive decrees and
service orders are used as an alternative to
regulations. Mental health legislation is essential
for complementing and reinforcing mental health.
policy and providing a legal framework for
meeting its goals. Such legislation can protect
human rights, enhance the quality of mental
health services and promote the integration of
persons with mental disorders into communities.
These goals are an integral part of national
mental health policies.

Skills necessary to influence
organizational practices and policies
These are as follows:-
developing frameworks for ethical decision making
analyzing policies/organizational procedures for consistency with
public sector standards
using a variety of words and language structures to explain
complex ideas to different audiences
interpreting and explaining complex, formal documents and
influencing others to apply them in the workplace
using strategies to clarify understanding
fostering dialogue on organizational values and ethics with and
between staff
undertaking strategic analysis leading to risk identification,
mitigation and planning related to unethical practice
Continued
accessing legislation and codes of ethics
electronically or in hard copy
responding to diversity, including gender and
disability
influencing others to apply occupational health
and safety procedures relating to ethical work
practices
These are the current legislation and skills
which are essential for maximizing the rights
of users of health and social care services.








AC 1.2
Analyze factors that may affect the achievement of promoting and
maximizing the rights of users of health and social care services

Various factors that affect the achievement of promoting and
maximizing the rights of users of health and social care services
are as follows:-

Economic
Health and social care service now takes place in the context of
massive changes in the global economy (from which no country
is exempt). These changes have radically changed the way
businesses operate throughout the world and neither
governments generally, nor the public service specifically, are
exempt from these influences. These include some changes
which are as follows:-

Information and communications technology (ICT) reaches into
every corner of the world, molding ideas, identities and the
consumption of goods.
Through ICT it is possible to safeguard the rights of users of health
and social care services in an effective and efficient manner.



Continued
Political and Social
Apart from the economic changes there have been
major changes to the way countries, governments
and political parties and movements now operate.
While globalization has made the world seem to be a
much bigger and more complex environment, it has
also made it smaller. Alongside this globalization of
the economic system is another form of globalization
in which there is a growing harmonization among the
countries of the world in terms of world polity, that is, a
common sense of such things as human rights,
models of democracy and good governance and the
need to fight corruption. Issues of accountability are
now extremely important, as is the concept of the
public service having to respond to citizens as clients
rather than subjects.


Continued
The use of ICT has enabled regional, local and minority interests
to make their presence felt in ways previously considered
impossible. Public servants now have to be able to interact with
the public and the media in very direct ways, ways that out of
date and increasingly obsolete organizational structures do not
prepare them for.
At another level, the rapid changes in the nature of work and the
growth of unemployment have made major, and often negative,
impacts on the lives of people. Unemployment because of a lack
of higher order skills or because of outsourcing or the closing of
uncompetitive enterprises using obsolete technology, creates
serious social dysfunction.
These are some of the factors that affect the health and social care
organization and that in turn affect the rights of users of health
and social services.






AC 1.3
Analyze how communication between care workers and individuals contribute to
promoting and maximizing the rights of users of health and social care services

In order to communicate between care workers and individuals which then
in turn give its contribution to promote as well as maximize the rights of
health and social care service, there are various means which are as
follows:-
newsletters
magazines
websites and internal Intranets
audio and video programming and packages
Face-to-face programs, eg. staff meetings/forums, external speaking
engagements, speakers bureaus
e-mail messages, memos, speeches
letters, e.g. Thank you letters to sponsors and donors
blogs
media releases, media kits
media list (list of actual media outlets the organization has in a
database)
annual report


To ensure effective
communication between care
workers and individuals
In order to ensure effective communication there
are various things which are taking into
consideration, they are as follows:-


Continued
The Joint Commission reports that investing to
improve communication within the healthcare
setting can lead to:
Improved safety
Improved quality of care and patient outcomes
Decreased length of patient stay
Improved patient and family satisfaction
Enhanced staff morale and job satisfaction
(Dunn, 2007)




Reason of barrier in communication in Health and Social Care
z

Human factors; attitudes, behaviours, morale, memory failures, stress
and fatigue of staff.
Distractions and interruptions.
Shift changes.
Gender, social and cultural differences.
Hierarchy or power distance relationships (for example, junior staff are
reluctant to report or question senior staff).
Difference in training of doctors, nurses and paraprofessionals.
Time pressures and workload.
Limited ability to multitask even when highly skilled.
Lack of a shared mental model regarding what is to be achieved.
Lack of organization policies and / or protocols.
Organizational culture that discourages open communication.
Lack of defined roles and responsibilities among members of
multidisciplinary teams (Bonacum, 2004)

Continued
In order to ensure effective communication between
social care worker and individuals try to avoid all
such types of barriers and it will then helps to
promote the rights of users of health and social
care.

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