What is The Policies and Procedures in Health and Social Care? (2023)

Policies and procedures in health and social care are compressed data of rules and regulations. As an employer, you must create effective employee policies and procedures. So why does it need to adapt? Because policies and procedures can influence all major decisions and actions within a social care service, and all activities occur within their boundaries.

Read the blog and learn about policies and procedures in health and social care, their importance, and more.

Why Are Policies and Procedures Important?

Policies and procedures are essential to protect people’s care and support in health and social care. Your organisation is adhering to regulations and the law as a particular process. It shares day-to-day activities, practises consistency, reduces mistakes, and keeps patients and staff safe. Similarly, it’s also applicable to any company. The following reasons can evaluate their importance-

• Regulatory Procedure: An organisation needs policies and procedures to meet standards. The guidelines evaluate compliance programs, systems, and etiquette that you can include in your approach and practice. For example-
  • U.S. Justice Department maintains healthy, up-to-date policies and procedures as a primary part of health and social care regulation.
  • The CQC’s Regulation 17: Good Governance is one of the most famous regulators worldwide.
  • In the UK, you can follow guidance on compliance with the U.K. Bribery Act for policies and procedures.
• Employees Accountable: Policies and procedures guide plays a vital role in employee behaviour. Now you have a mechanism to hold them if they need to follow policy and procedures.So employees can’t claim they don’t know what they have to do.
• Employees must get a copy (written, electronic, whatever) into their hands and in a language they can understand. But primarily, policies and procedures allow the company to charge employees (and third parties) for their unacceptable behaviour.
• Identify Anomalies: Most of the company’s transactions are shared with the audit teams to identify trades. In addition, it brings inconsistent events into more severe relief. For example, all-expense reports require item receipts (this is a policy) and are submitted through a specific online system. So you can find employees who are not submitting expense reports with item receipts.
• Moreover, employees ask or complain about an exception to the policy. In that case, it’s a warning sign that your policies and procedures are probably inconsistent rather than reluctant employees.
• Build a Stronger Culture: They build a robust corporate culture. It is an example of perfect practice where all employees understand how to go about their daily routines and know the core ethical values and priorities. It gives you greater efficiency, lower employee turnover, and fewer compliance failures. These traits can provide you with an invaluable strategic edge over your competitors.

What Are the Policies and Procedures in Health and Social Care?

Health and social care services greatly depend on policies and procedures set within the organisations. Primarily, health and social care settings will need the following policies and practices:

• Safeguarding and protection
• Equal opportunities
• Record keeping
• Confidentiality
• First aid
• Concerns/whistleblowing and complaints
• Administration of medicines
• Health and safety

Policies and procedures both are used as keys in a care setting therefore, it is also necessary to understand it separately.

In short, a health and social care policy sets out what is to be done, why, how, and when the organisation seeks to approach specific areas of rules.

Such as, we can analyse a whistleblowing policy for our understanding-

• What is added, and why is it different from a grievance
• Why whistleblowing might be difficult
• Why whistleblowing is vital to protect service users, the organisation, and staff
• How we approach whistleblowing
• How to encourage it
• Organisational culture
• Examples of areas and concerns
• The ways a team can raise a problem
• How staff concerns
• How it is handled by management/the organisation
• Recording processes
• Identifying/working with external bodies.
• Contacts for internal/external whistleblowing

As a procedure in health and social care, it is a written, combined set of step-by-step instructions. For example, the medicine administration department has already provided what to do next and created a management team for the specific activity.

Apart from the policy, it is less about the overall attitude and approach. It will guide a staff member through each step, for example, when assisting service users with eating and drinking or administering medication.

Which 5 Central Policies and Procedures Do Health, and Social Care Workers Have to Follow?

We use policies and procedures in daily operations. They also ensure compliance and legal requirements in a company. Additionally, the health and social care complex structure requires a comprehensive approach and procedure library to cover a wide range of content to protect-

• Patients
• Visitors
• Staff
• Organisation
• Victim

Appropriately managing rules can decrease the chance of problems, enhance competence, and keep a better working environment. The top five types of policies and procedures in health and society are described below:

• Patient Care: A healthcare organisation’s fundamental purpose is to deliver patient care. Your support staff must understand and implement effective patient care policies. It is the most comprehensive set of policies and procedures as follows-
  • Nutrition guides
  • Education of patients and family
  • Abuse and neglect
  • Admission and discharge
  • Rights and responsibilities of patient

It helps to know how your organisation handles specific medical situations and provides the correct information they need for proper patient care.

Care policies can also differ in individual departments. For example, it depends on the role of unique organisational function as a hospital’s paediatric and cardiology departments have a set of guidelines for their care practices.

• Health and Safety: Both are considered more important for health and social care professionals to face health and safety risks. Based on your exact type of healthcare facility, examples of these policies can-
  • Cover personal protective equipment (PPE)
  • Staff are exposed to dangerous substances
  • Prepare for any security threats
  • What to do, how to do it, and when to do it for any incident
  • Arrange proper counselling

However, every company continues to adjust its changes for COVID-19. Most healthcare organisations have combined these matters in their police library. As a result, the pandemic has taken a physical and emotional toll on healthcare staff worldwide.

It’s also important to inform staff about updated policies for overall well-being because these policies cover methods for-

• Internal fitness programs
• Social support groups
• Employees development
• Support health outcomes for staff

• Information Management: A digital policy management solution provides organised policy information. Healthcare organisations can adopt-
  • Technology solutions
  • Data privacy
  • Information technology

Since shared information can include an organisation’s private information related to –

• Staff members
• Patients
• Visitors

If you are unable to ensure the security of information that is directly considered as the HIPAA Violation (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). It results in millions of lost dollars, negatively impacts your reputation, and can lose status tax-exempted.

• Drug Maintaining and Management: Pharmacy is typically one of the largest departments of a hospital. It handles all medicine purchasing, manufacturing, and dispensing in a hospital context. Due to the sensitivity of the pharmacy department, it must follow strict guidelines to reduce medication errors or accidents. Pharmacy policies cover prescription protocols, outpatient prescriptions, and drug sample protocols.
• Administrative and HR: Administration ensures the needs of staff, patient, and visitor appropriately.The facilities can include visitation rules, dress code policy, requisition of equipment, and bed policy etc.

For healthcare and social organisations, the human resources department handles various responsibilities. Specifically, they focus on the below points-

• Supporting the safety
• Welfare of staff
• Communicating legal
• Ethical standards
• Developing an organisation’s culture
• Ensure an organisation functions

The HR department must create and maintain a comprehensive list of policies and procedures. For example, HR policies may cover vacation days, personal hygiene maintenance, and shift policies like other industries.

What’s Included in Access Policies and Procedures?

Mainly Access Policies & Procedures are included in a software platform. That easily allows you to manage all your –

• Health and social care policies
• Procedures
• Documents
• Forms

It is designed by-

• Care Practitioners
• Care Workers
• Registered Managers
• Regulatory Bodies

However, Access Policies & Procedures are described as follows-

• A quick setup
• Easy to use
• Simple
• Update

To ensure the above term the healthcare providers and organisations must have a “My Health Record Security and Access policy”. Before registering in this system, you have to maintain some procedures, such as-

• Communicate to all staff
• Accessible
• Enforced with other relevant parties
• Update data at least once annually
• Review or add
• Amend it if any new risks are identified

This checklist guides and assesses the needs and risks that may apply to your organisation. Healthcare provider organisations must ensure the policy includes and addresses the topics outlined in the My Health Records Rule 2016, Rule 42.

Suppose you start a new care service and need to complete registration to operate your service successfully with compliance. In that case, Access Policies and Procedures has all the expertly written, easy-to-use policies and procedures you need.

Apart from this, there are many things to consider while setting access control procedures. Such as-

• Networks
• Applications
• Building areas
• Particular information

Before that, systems sign documents to state that they know your company’s policy, terms, and conditions to prevent potential inappropriate use that causes security threats. Additionally, you have proper protocols for entity authentication and provide each employee with their identifier, such as.

• An ID
• Personal login
• Password
• Email verification

It is also essential to protect each employee’s password, ID and clear guidelines for policies-

• Remote access to your company’s networks
• Use of personal devices for work purposes
• Get Email notification for any action

Currently, work from home is increasing and being popular among employees. It brings their own devices to work or telecommutes to connect with each other.

Who Manages Care Home Policies and Procedures?

Each State, Medicare, Medicaid Program, Accrediting Body, etc., has managed by standards home policies and procedures. However, care home managers are also responsible for ensuring care home policies and procedures. That provides the best possible care and creates a healthy and happy care home culture, free from harm, abuse, and neglect. In many organisations, a safeguarding officer is liable to develop and manage policies and procedures.

Conclusion

Hopefully, by reading this blog you will get a comprehensive understanding of the policies and procedures in health and social care because it is essential for both caregivers and takers. It always takes care of staff’s needs and patients right in the best possible manner.

Happy reading!

Post Author

StudyPlex

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