1August 2012 Duty of Care

Duty of Care; Technically speaking; You must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbour 2August 2012

Duty of Care In relation to Health and Social Care; Where reasonably possible, your actions must not place an individual at risk of danger, harm or abuse when caring for them. By taking a job in care you are taking on a duty to care, therefore you owe it to your service users to care for them. 3August 2012

The Law You are responsible under the following laws to uphold a duty of care; The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 Children’s Act 1989 Disabled Persons Act 1986 Sex Discrimination Act 1986 Race Relations Act 1976 Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child Health & Safety at work Safeguarding Children Special Educational Need 4August 2012

Duty of Care and Safeguarding What is Safeguarding? Principles Underpinning all Work to Safeguard and Promote the Welfare of Children: Protecting children from maltreatment Preventing impairment of children's health or development Ensuring that children are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care By upholding your duty of care, you are automatically safeguarding individuals. 5August 2012

Conflicts and Dilemmas Conflicts may arise between how a practitioner perceives a situation and how they feel it is not being dealt with appropriately by the family but as you can see from the list above, there is a lot of room for variations of opinion on what the above may actually mean in practice, particularly in the first four points. Other areas of possible conflict: Confidentiality Safeguarding children – sharing a concern or disclosure with outside agencies. August 20126

Managing Conflict Support to manage conflict could be from: Line manager/Supervisor General Manager Local Safeguarding Children Team Social services Community Health Visitor etc. August 20127

Complaints What is a complaint? –A complaint is an expression of dissatisfaction, either written or spoken. A complaint can be made by an individual or a group. 8August 2012