Working in social care is a vocation where you provide a wide range of assistance to people with eligible needs to support their mental and physical wellbeing. When you choose a career in social care, you’ll learn all about your Duty of Care, as well as getting the training you need to specialise in an area of caregiving.
Essentially, your Duty of Care is a binding legal and professional obligation to safeguard those people you are responsible for while you are supporting them to meet their needs. This means that you are legally required to act in the person’s best interests for their health and wellbeing, and not cause harm or fail to act to safeguard them. It also means acting within your training and competencies, and not acting outside of these by taking on responsibilities or practices that are beyond this.
Your Duty of Care is non-negotiable and includes your colleagues, yourself, and anyone else you come into contact with as part of your role, as well as the person you are caring for. This is an exceptionally important part of your role.
Code of Conduct for Health & Social Care Workers
Because of the responsibilities that being a care worker entails, a Code of Conduct was developed to set the guidelines and standards for social care workers. It defines the standards that care workers are expected to meet, the requirements for care workers to fulfil their role, and even areas where you can expect to require continuing professional development.
This is a comprehensive policy that is legally binding and enforceable, and it exists to protect and guide social care workers as well as ensure the quality of care for the people we work with. The Code of Conduct complements the Care Certificate, a qualification that all care workers are required to obtain within their probationary period.
How does Duty of Care help to Provide Safeguarding?
Duty of Care applies in most workplaces to some degree, but it is extremely important to adhere to within the care industry because of the vulnerability of the people who receive care and how it applies to safeguarding. Failure to provide Duty of Care can have a severe impact on those being cared for, as well as their loved ones and fellow colleagues. Duty of Care empowers you to deliver the best quality of care, safeguard those being cared for, reduce workplace incidents and safety issues, and have the confidence to raise concerns.
Duty of Care helps to safeguard vulnerable people such as the elderly, those that are ill, young children, and those with mental and physical disabilities; people who require an additional level of protection from harm.
In addition, Duty of Care extends safeguarding outside your exact role. For example, if another caregiver is not upholding their Duty of Care or is abusing the person in their care, it is your legal and professional obligation to report them to the relevant authorities.
Finally, it also limits your role and duties in order to provide safeguarding. This is done to prevent an overreach that can cause harm to the person you are caring for. For example, if you are qualified to assist with companionship, meal preparation, and housekeeping, then you cannot manage the person’s medication or nursing care. Doing so – and making an error because you are untrained – can be very harmful to the person in your care.
How should Health & Social Care Workers apply Duty of Care?
Duty of Care is not simply a policy or a set of documentation that caregivers need to know about – it’s critical to understand it and apply it in your everyday duties. It’s in real-world scenarios that your Duty of Care becomes a roadmap for how you can deal with everything from routine, everyday tasks, to serious issues. Here’s how.
Communication
Clear, accurate, accessible, and reliable communication is a key element of your Duty of Care, helping you understand your client’s needs and supply the right level of support to fulfil your role.
For example, communication with autistic people, individuals with dementia, and other health conditions that may impact on their communication needs will require someone with empathy, ability and understanding to ensure effective communication between a caregiver and the person they support.
In addition, you may have to keep lines of communication open with the person’s spouse, caregivers or relatives, to keep relevant persons informed on a need-to-know basis about the person’s health, progress, and overall wellbeing. You’ll also need to know who to contact when an issue arises that is outside of your scope of capabilities and what communication channels you need to use to raise this concern and get the right people involved.
Addressing Concerns
Sadly, neglect (intentionally or unintentionally) and abuse of those receiving services is a reality. As a social caregiver, you may come across situations within your work, and it’s vital that you are able to identify potential abuse and act appropriately, following the correct Whistleblowing processes. This will fulfil your Duty of Care towards the person that you are supporting by acting in their best interests.
For example, if you are supporting someone who is being neglected because it appears that their primary caregiver is suffering from possible illness, you need to know how to report it, who to report it to, and what to do to resolve the situation as quickly as possible. All reputable care providers issue their staff with processes to enable them to effectively report.
The Conflict between Duty of Care & an Individual’s Right to Make Choices
From your training as a care worker, you’ll be given the tools to understand what is in a person’s best interests, but that doesn’t mean that you have the right to enforce any changes that the person refuses if they are assessed to have capacity and make their own choices. This can create a very difficult situation for caregivers who want to fulfil their Duty of Care without infringing on their individual rights. However, decisions may need to be taken in a person’s best interests where they are deemed to lack capacity.
For example, you may support a person with emphysema who has been assessed to be eligible to receive support with medication management, help around the house, or even nursing care. However, they refuse to quit smoking, even though their doctors have advised them to do so. If they are considered to be medically sound of mind and assessed to have capacity, you don’t have the right to force them to quit, even if it is in their best interests for their physical health. Instead, you can still fulfil your Duty of Care by chatting to them about the risks, helping them to quit should they change their mind, and helping to support their health through good nutrition, physical exercise, and activities that support their wellbeing.
Addressing Complaints
Being a social care worker means working in the most intimate and personal settings, which requires caregivers to be sensitive and compassionate. Care workers should be responsive to concerns, and expediently address difficulties as they arise, to fulfil their Duty of Care.
A relative of the person may raise concerns that the services you provide are not meeting their loved one’s needs. For example, they may be getting a lot of physiotherapy after an illness or hospitalisation when a relative thinks they should just be resting in bed. You’ll need to be able to explain why physical therapy is recommended, how it works, and give them the resources to escalate their concern if necessary – all while you keep sustaining the necessary support.
Complaints should be listened to and responded to within an agreed timeframe. Complaints can often be a good opportunity to improve services.
Care Plans
Care Plans are created collaboratively with the person receiving care and are bespoke to meet their needs. Today it is recognised that holistic care is essential for mental and physical wellbeing, especially for people who are vulnerable and need additional support.
Social care workers need to have an individualised approach to those who request support. This allows them to assess their care needs accurately and develop a comprehensive and customised care plan that is person-centred. The care plan is a live document that is continually amended as the person’s needs change.
For example, you have a client with a mental disability who can work but requires occupational therapy. They then develop depression. This may need to be referred to the appropriate healthcare professionals and the commissioners and noted in the care plan. The care plan can then be updated to include any healthcare professionals’ recommendations to ensure that the person gets the right support for their depression and their package of care is amended as necessary to meet their needs. This ensures you fulfil your Duty of Care by using your skills to assist the person and by acting to safeguard them from additional health concerns whilst not stepping outside your competencies to do so.
Care givers are expected to follow the care plan as this offers a consistent, safe service and is a reasonable management instruction. The care plan may be translated by a care provider into their own documentation for caregivers to follow.
Risk Assessments
For a social care package of care to be effective, it’s important that the services provided to a person reflect their care needs. Care workers are trained to accurately assess the needs of a person and to continually evaluate potential risks to ensure that their care needs continue to be met. This includes when their care needs change which could compromise their safety.
For example, you may provide support with independent living skills for a relatively independent senior citizen, but as they age, you may notice them mentioning that they cannot get out of the bath so easily, or that they are worried about falling. This can be included in your risk assessment and communicated to senior management who ensure that the appropriate action is taken. For example, the necessary referrals are made to healthcare professionals, equipment is sought, and staff are appropriately trained to use the equipment and provide the correct level of support with personal care. Risk assessments identify potential risks whilst weighing up a person’s human rights. They are not there to stop a person doing what they want to do, rather ensure that the necessary measures are implemented to allow them to continue doing what they want whilst remaining as safe as practicably possible.
Maintaining Privacy and Dignity
Because of the intimate nature of social care work, it is of utmost importance that care workers understand their Duty of Care as it relates to a person’s privacy and dignity. As a rule, social care workers should always knock before entering a room or a home, get consent before looking for an item in the home, or before touching a client.
For example, if you have a client with a physical disability that prevents them from walking, it’s important to get consent before you touch them to support them with personal care or transferring them into their wheelchair. If you provide therapies, you should also get consent before you touch people to work on their limbs or body. It’s also important to talk to your them as an equal, telling them what you are going to do and when, as you assist them. Failing to do this is failing your Duty of Care because compromising a person’s dignity or privacy is harmful to their wellbeing and can create a very harmful relationship.
Ongoing Training and Development
The care industry, like any other, is constantly evolving and improving. This means that you as a social care worker will be offered training and professional development throughout your career to fulfil your Duty of Care. This not only enables you to provide quality support, but it also contributes towards your personal development and future progression.
3 Trees Care & Support is a leading provider of social care training and development, helping people with a passion for caregiving to reach their full potential. As a company that feels passionately about social care career development, we provide exceptional support to all social care workers in our company, believing that our Duty of Care is to support them in the same exceptional way that they provide support to others!
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