304 Principles Fro Implementing the Duty of Care in the Heath and Social Sector

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Assignment 304 TASK A supervision notes As an experienced social care worker you have been asked to mentor a new social care worker. You plan to use a supervision session to explain about the duty of care and how this helps to protect individuals from harm or abuse. Prepare a set of notes to help you with this supervision session Ai) What is meant by the term 'duty of care?' A duty of care is the requirement that all health and social care professionals, and organisations providing health and care services, you must put the people who use the services first. They also have to do everything in their power to keep the service users safe from harm. Your duty of care underpins everything that you do, it is what underlies the codes of practice and it should be built into your practice on a day to day level, exercising your duty of care is also a legal requirement and what would be tested in court in the event of a case of negligence or malpractice. Aii) How the duty of care affects the work of a social care worker. Service users have a right to expect that when a professional is providing support they will be kept safe and not to be neglected or exposed to any unnecessary risk. The expression is that we ‘owe’ a duty of care to the service users we work with. ‘Owe’ is a useful word to describe the nature of the duty of care because it is just like a debt, it is something that you must pay as part of choosing to become a professional in the field of social care. Duty of care should be at the forefront of every social care workers practice. However in unfortunate circumstances it may be compromised due to things such as workload and prioritising client’s needs. Aiii) What having a duty of care means for a care giving organisation. A care giving organisation have a duty of care to both the service users and also employees. This means they have to

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