Assignment 205 Essay

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Assignment 205 Task A Write a letter to a friend who is thinking of working in the care profession. In the letter, you must describe: Ai what is meant by the term “duty of care”; Aii how the duty of care affects the work that you do as a social care worker. Dear Jazz, I'm writing to you because you expressed an interest about working in the care profession and about duty of care. Well duty of care means that all health and social care professionals, and organisations providing health and care services, must act in the best interests of the people they support. They also have to do everything in their power to keep people safe from harm and exploitation. As a care professional, you must ensure that you do not do something, or fail to do something, that causes harm to someone. You have a professional duty of care to act only within your own competence and not to take on something you are not confident about. Your duty of care underpins everything that you do; it is what underlies the code 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, you have to recognise that you are responsible for the welfare of a vulnerable person. People have a right to expect that when a professional is providing support, they will be kept safe and not be neglected or exposed to any unnecessary risks. The expression is that we 'owe' a duty of care to the people 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. Having a duty of care towards the people you work with is not unique to social care; all professions who work with people have a duty of care. This includes doctors, teachers, nurses, midwives and many others.

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