Healt and Social Care Communication free essay sample

When supporting service users, support workers interact differently with different people. For example, colleagues, management and the individuals themselves and their families and other communication with the different individuals may not always be smooth as expected. A lot of challenges occur when some people communicate inappropriately with others in ways that provoke or ehancating others. Thereby breaking the code of practice with denounces prejudice and discrimination. This needs to be challenged to create a safe working environment for individuals. Bernard Moss Page 68 points out that if prejudice and discrimination practices are not challenged it is one further tiny victory for intolerance and bigotry. † Challenging inappropriate interpersonal communication is central creating a safe environment for carers and individuals. Examples of inappropriate interpersonal communication issues are using offensive language when communicating. Failure to value other people’s dignity, failure to respect other peoples lives and sexual orientation, failure to respect their class and charminating people with disciplines. People in view differences in cultures differently, some embrace them as encirching to the society while others reach to them with fear, hostility and suspicion. Moss 2008 Page 69 In view of the above, various styles are employed in challenging inappropriate interpersonal communication different. Where inappropriate language is used, one could challenge this on a one on one basis lay requesting the individual to use appropriate language and rephrase their statements. This needs to be done in a firm but calm way ,which will not be provocative to the individual concerned. This however may not always be successfully done if the individual would have done so under the influence or either alcohol or drugs. In view of the above, it is important to challenge one’s use of bad language when they are not under the influence of anything. Challenging may also be done through use of body language, without even communicating verbally. This could be successfully be done between individuals who are used to each other an know that when the other reacts to situations in a given way, that way mean that they would have done would be inappropriate. This could either be gestures or other movements for example frowning moving positions standing or sitting down to remove oneself from the prosant environment or even booking away from the situation. This is supported by Argyle (1978) as cited in Tilmouth, Davis and Williams, who argue that â€Å"non-verbal communication can have as much as five times the impact of words spoken on a person’s words of understanding. † When dealing with very difficult individuals, it is important to use stronger power of them to challenge the inappropriate interpersonal communication. This could be done through reference to the organization’s policies about the matter in questions with strong emphasis on its observation while in the premises (Bernard Moss 2000). Issues that involve gross misconduct will usually require the manager to disciplinary action by calling a disciplinary meeting with the individual to challenge inappropriate interpersonal communication. This may involve another person who may be there to witness and cord the outcome. In the meeting, rules need to be outlined and observed and when necessary a follow up letter could be sent to the individual to reinforce the issues discussed. The manager needs to use appropriate and professional language to do so outlining the organizational policy with regards to the matter. Finally, as outlined above the reviewed methods of dealing with inappropriate interpersonal communication could either be successfully done when the right styles of challenging them are employed or they could exhibit detrimental effects in both the organization and the individuals at most when ineffectively executed. 1. 4 Various strategies could be used to support service users with specific communication needs. These communication needs could be hearing problems, visual problems, physical problems, speech problems as well as learning difficulties. People could be born with partial and permanent hearing impatience. People born with no hearing at all could communicate very well by means of sign language or Maketon. Judy Richards 1999 defines sign language as â€Å"a method of communication where the hands are used to convey a message. † This means that failure to produce speech may not hinder one from communicating with other people. They could still convey messages with their hands, there and be responded to by hands in a way that they will understand. Judith Richards further identifies the British sign language as a language â€Å"in which language users make gestures involving movement of hands, arms, eyes, face, head and body to conduct a conversation. † The above notion seems to suggest that failure to hear should not be viewed as a failure to communicate. Service users could learn the language to be able to communicate with others as well as in a scholarly why. On the other hand, some people may lose their hearing during the course of their life due to age, disease or accidents that may damage their hearing. In such cases, this could be corrected by the use of hearing aids, according to US Food and Drug Administration (Protecting and Promoting your Health). www. fda. gov/MedicalDevices) Hearing aids are sound amplifying devices designed to aid people who have a hearing impairment. There are various types of hearing aids. These differ by the way they are designed, the special feature on them as well as the technology used on them to achieve the hearing aiding. Individuals could consult with their hearing aid specialist on choosing the best hearing aids to suit their specific hearing impairment. Just like with hearing impairment one could be born with vision impairment or they could sustain it during the course of their lives. Judy Richards identifies visual impairment as â€Å"disorder, dysfunctions and diseases which affect the eyes and the vision of an individual. † With permanent vision loss, individuals could be introduced to Braille, which according to Judy Richard identifies Braille as â€Å"a type of writing and printing using raised dots to represent letters which allows blind and visually impaired people to red and communicate by touch. Braille enables visually impaired individuals to gain access to facilities, learn to read and access information –for example touching the braille impressions on doors to ensure they are heading the right way. † It also empowers them by facilitating learning, reading and accessing information that will enable them to lead independent lives. Visually impaired individuals could use a while colored walking stick to assist them in identifying where they are going as well as communicating to he public that they are visually impaired. ON another note, however, people with partial vision could use assistive vision correction tools like reading and prescription reading eye glasses. They could use glasses to see the people they are communicating with properly and read information that could be communicated to them. Teeth are a vital part in a human body and are central for communication purposes. Communication with no teeth or bad teeth could be difficult for individuals. Other than mastication the teeth help bring out words being communicated clearly. Teeth could be lost due to extradition, dental diseases, defects on the teeth or accidents that may result in teeth being knocked out gt;These teeth could be replaced by a dentist by the use of dentures. When a service user loses their teeth, they tend to alter the way they communicate. They lose their self esteem due to not wanting other people to see that they don’t have teeth when communicating. This way they become antisocial and withdraw from expressing their needs verbally. Dentures are a professional way of restoring their self esteem and confidence to enable them to communicate happily and freely with others. ,1 The UK as a multicultural society embraces individuals from different cultures with different values and beliefs. The way the society communicates with individuals from these cultures may create challenges that may affect effective delivery of care in the health and social care sector. In view of the above, various factors could influence individuals’ personal values and cultural beliefs. These factors could include individuals beliefs, age, sex, sexuality, ethnicity, gender, education and social class. The cultural aspect of individuals belief could be based on the way they dress, speak, worship. Individuals in care may want to dress in a certain way and may find it offensive if that is not observed. For example some Jewish individuals in care may only want to be supported but female support workers who wear only feminine clothes like dresses or skirts. This may meant that they may not allow female staff to support them wearing trousers or slacks. Doing so could be interpreted roughly by the Jewish society in care. They would choose to participate in activities and engage more with support workers who respect this choice according to them. While this could be a good way of expressing their cultural beliefs, it may not always go well with the support workers who may feel forced to abide by that notion so as to support to keep their jobs. IN such situations delivery of care is compromised, as a conflict of interests would have been created by the acceptance of the Jewish individuals’ choices. The non-verbal communication techniques, which are mainly body language, could by interpreted differently when communicating with individuals from different cultures. For example, an English child would be expect to look an adult in the eye when speaking to them and stand up right. IF they look away when being asked questions especially those that need to determine that hey be telling the truth or not they may quickly be ruled out as lyinggt; Contrary to the above, an African child would not look an adult in the eye when talking to them. Doing so could be interpreted as being disrespectful to the adult. In addition to that, they are expected to kneel down next to the adult who they may be speaking to. This gesture is viewed as being respectful to adults. A South African female individual in care may not allow male staff to support them with care activities that are intrusive for example cleaning their bottom and applying cream and or shaving their bottom front in preparation for a surgical procedure. This is the English culture may not matter at all as it is part of the health care procedure while it is viewed as grossly intrusive in the South African Culture. The way individuals dress would have either negative or positive impact on the society’s perceptions about them. For example, individuals who may dress in dark clothes others may perceive all the time as having more of a darker side to their lives than the natural eye could see. The same could be with people who wear clothes with very bright colors and a lot of facial make up. They would be perceived as working to show themselves off to the world and as a result may be viewed as prostitutes with inviting characteristics. Contrary to the above, people who wear warm decent colors of clothing may be look at as calm and safe people to be around Facial expressions may depict different language expressions. Some may be the same in different languages whl others may differ. For example widely opening one’s mouth with teeth together could be interpreted as smiling, meaning that one is happy while the same action with the mouth wide open could mean a surprise which has a completely different meaning from the above. Expressions on the forehead for example may mean jouyous reaction, anger or even a surpsise depending on how it is expressed and viewed by different individuals. The same goes with variation in various ethnic groups’ language interprettions of meanings, sounds and actions performed. For example, a lot of youg people use their hands instead of their mounths to express some rude langue responses to situations they are not amused with in doing so different fingers are use d to signal different meanings. These way the same in some cultures and ethnic groups but different in others. The way are may nod their head may signal how they feel and what they mean. The same applies to support part of ones body movements for example the shoulders. When pushed up and down, the action may mean that one does not want. Contrary to that, when pushed up with open arms and chest forward it may mean acceptance and chest inward may mean uncertainty. As a health and social worker, a support worker needs to be aware that different individuals with different cultural backgrounds may view different health and social care issues differently. Support workers need to work hard to ensure that the individuals’ cultural values and beliefs are observed and adhered to when supporting then. It Is important that they observe their ethnicity and endeavor to understand how different cultures behave in different situations. Support workers could raise the issues about different individuals’’ values and beliefs in meetings and training sessions to gain more knowledge that will equip the with better skills to support individuals with lateral values and backgrounds 2. 2 Various legal requirements have in form of policies, practices, codes of practice and charters used in organizational systems do have a great impact on the communication process in the health and social care practice. All care activities are required by law to communicate their care activities mainly through documentation. This is done at different levels of care delivery and in most cases different tools are used by different organisations to do this. Examples of these tools are care plans, support logs, appointment forms, accident report forms find chart incontinence monitoring charts, individual review forms, logging in records, telecare alarm logs, health and safety log sheets. , finance log sheets. These tools are used to monitor different care activities and may be created differently by different organizations. Written documentation is an important method of communicating care activities in care settings. It is a way of communication practitioners care activities in record keeping. Care plans are drawn to assist support workers to deliver care as expected to the individual. These are created after an assessment and classification of an individual into either residential care, nursing homes, supported living home or in hospitalgt; this tool is used by carers to document delivered the care to the individuals in the way specified by their care package. In addition to the care plan, other care activities are also documented in various recording tools. In supporting living care, the other important records are the individuals’ health records, their financial, their GP appointments, their reviews, risk assessments, life long learning records, community access records, and their incident/accidents records. These records are required by the leau to be kept safely all the time. According to â€Å"†Ã¢â‚¬ Data Protection Act†Ã¢â‚¬ Ã¢â‚¬ Ã¢â‚¬  All individuals’ records should be kept under lock and key. Access to these records should only be given with the individual’s consent, where the individual is incompetent to make this decision an avocate coned be appointed on their behalf. After recording information in individual’s records, support workers are required to store them safely for access only but these entitled to do so , support workers are not allowed to share information about the individuals with those not concerned with their care. When information is required on legal disclosure could the confidentiality of their information be booked. Documentation of these records. Example break confidentiality. The records should be clearly and accurately documented dated, signed and stored away in a lockable place. Individuals names should not be said in public when discussing about them. Instead their initials should be used. While individuals’ information is kept under lock and key they have the right to deny include access to their can have access to information records and the right in the records and they are allowed to see everything kept. I. e. Their records about them as stipulated in the General social Care Council Codes of Practice. Record writing and record keeping skills should be taught in meetings and in various care course that equip support workers with knowledge and skills care delivery as well as in record keeping and communication. This could be done through the achievement of the National Vocational Qualification NVQ Levels 2 and 3. Organization systems put in place policies and procedures to be observed by care practitioners and individuals in promoting good work practice in ommunication. Most of the communication that occurs in a work place is done by support workers with to others, through written documentation, meetings and or talking. This would be for information support activities, reports writing. The support worker could communicate with staff and management in meetings, reviews with GP/social workers/district nurses. Then could talk to individuals about their problems and health issues. In documentati on, organizations have policies and procedures in place to be followed in communicating information. For example, if the service user is on medication the tool called ‘Medication Administration Record Sheet’ (MARS) has to be filled in. The MARS sheet will show the type of medication the individual is on clearly giving the medication name. When it is to be administered this could being the morning, evening afternoon evening or night. Specifies time is given is 0800, 12 pm 1600, 2000. How the medication is to be given in what quantity. For example, dissolve on sachet in 250mls of water or take two puffs of the inhaler twice a day. This could also be about chewing the tablet, apply some cream on an affected area or putting two eye drops three times a day in each eye. The medication could be in form of liquid and syrups, tablets, inhalers, creams, injections, eye or ear drops and medicated bandages, bain patles many other forms. When the type of medication the individuals take has been in administered. This should be indicated by signing on the particular medications on a particular day. This is the only way other staff could follow whether or not the medication an individual is to take has actually been administered. Without MARS in place, staff would have no way of knowing whether or not the individual’s medication has been administered. Thi sis because most of them may not be competent enough to know, if they have to take medication. In addition to the above, organizations are required by law to keep a records of the training of staff of the Administration of Medication. No staff is allowed to administer any medication to people in care without the appropriate training. It is important for the organization to put such a system in place to protect the individuals in care as failure to do so may ave serious consequences like wrongly administration of medication and other medication errors that may have a threat to the individual’s health and even fatalities in extreme cases. Another example of a documentation tool is the support logs. These are log sheets that provide information in the care given to individuals. This care could be supporting the individual with personal care, break fast, medication, accessing the community for bowling or going to the community college for life long learninggt; This could be a bead making course or an art class. The support worker will need to record the outcomes of the support. For example, they need to log the finance folder filling in the expenditure logs and balancing he service users cash logs. They will also need to document the individuals feeding pattern especially when they notice some changes in the individual’s behavior eating and or drinking habits. Various tools provided by the organization could be sued to monitor the patterns. These could be food monitoring charts, fluid charts, bowel and bladder monitoring charts. The bowel monitoring chart staff will need to document if the individuals move their bowels and the size of that bowel movement activity. In some cases they may also be required to document the consistency of the faeces produced. This information could be used by the district nurse to determine if the bowel movement pattersnare normal or not. Depending on the autering the information could be used for submission to the GP who may request further tests to determine whether or not the individual has bowel related problems. These could be constipation, intestinal problems, bowel cancer, and other bowel diseases they may have that could contribute to the individuals bowel problems. Other monitoring systems in organizations could be done through official record keeping that could also be required by external agents that monitor the organizations achiva. These include Care Quality Commission CQC. , Health and Safety Executive responsible for the encouragement, regulation and enforcement of workplace health and safety. Fire Safety Division for prevention reducing and firefighting fire that may result in death, injury, property an anerge Care quality Commission from October 2010 health and Adult Social Care providers registered and licensed with CQC. A health watchdog that regulates all health and adult care services in England. Ensures standards of quality and safety are being met, Fire Sares Staff basic fire training and clients about evacuation. Fire Safety Procedures legislation How to read the fire manualgt; Fire precautions Act 1971. Fire testinggt; Fire alarms fire handouts. Fire and Rescue Service Act 2004. Health and Safety . Fire extinguisher login and of buildings. Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. Fire alarms , no spills, testing of hoists, fire doors. Care Quality Commission CQC monitors standards of care in various care settings. Has a wide range of enforcement powers to take action on behalf of people in care. They can carry out inspections on any area of a care facility. This could be on the training of staff for example, staff caring for individuals have to have retained NVQ Level 2 or 3. Staff provisions and work distribution for example he ratio of staff to the service users to determine whethere or not staff are over worked and under staffed. Whtehr or not proper practices are followed on the work place when carrying out certain activities. For example, where there are incontinent service users, yellow bags are used to dispose of their pads and these are individually bagged before being put in the yellow bags and placed in a yellow bin which are frequently collected to prevent a health hazard. In this case, the CQC will expect to find these in place and if not, penalties could be imposed on the organization. 2. 4 There are different ways that could be sued to improve the communication process in Social Care. This could be through verbal or nonverbal and or written communication. The organization could invest in its staff by putting them through training of different aspects that will directly contribute to positive delivery of care acquisition of better communication skills. These could include Safety, Communication and Record Keeping, Confidentiality awareness, Dementia training challenging behaviors, care palling and Monday. It could be of great importance as well for the organization to take advantage of the ongoing training and development of health and social care orkers government funded Health and Social Care Diplomas Level 2 and Level 3 formerly National Vocational Qualifications NVQs. These are done through work based learning with learners employed by the organization, paid on their days they go to college to study and working in the Health and Social Care sector while pursuing these qualifications. The qualifications will empower the support workers with the acquired communica tion, knowledge and skills and improve their communication skills. The support workers could have a better understanding of the different care aspects covered in different core units. These will impart them with knowledge in values and ethics , their legal responsibilities, practice of service standards and implementation protection of individuals. They could also acquire knowledge into the legal requirements of the record keeping and data protection act and its implication son the protection of the individuals information. The employers need to continuously engage support workers in in-house training in different communication activities in accordance with the codes of practice for social care workers as ethics in the General Social Care Comunical 2002. It is important that support workers listen to the service users actively when speaking to them. When speaking to them, support workers need to bring themselves down to their lvel as different heights make them feel intimidated. Support workers should ensure that hey put the Service User in the centre of their care, empowering them by supporting them to make their own choices on issues that matter to them the most. For exmpale, what they want to eat, when to go to bed and the cltoehs they choose to wear. An individual with learning difficulties and limited speech may not be able to read and write thus any written communication may not benefit them. Pictorial representations could be used instead to communicate iwht this individual. The support worker could have pictures on the wall that show a plate of fish and chips that depicts time to eat, a galss of beer means that it is pub night tonight, a bed will mean it is bed time. A shower head will mean it is itme for a shower. With time, these include the follow †¦ Protect the rights and promote the interests of service users. Stritve to use codes of practice on 6th page. 3. 2 (no 3. 1) While Information Communication Technology ICT has become part of many people’s lives it has further stretched to involve being usda s an important tool in health and social care. ICT is used in health and social care organisations in discerninating information. The Service Manger could email staff to inform them about the oncoming meeting ans staff could email back information they may want added to the agnenda for discussion. Organisation circulars could be sent by the Human Resource Manager through emails to all staff. Staff could carry out research on issues relation to supporting services uers using the internet. They could access case studies ,, report care journals, downloads information as well. Juliette Okko and James Reid (38) point out that â€Å"The internet and advances in ICT mean thter ies more information available than you can usually utilize or make sense of. Instead of relying on the few resource books available in the workplace storage cupboard, use of the internet could be of great benefit to staff. Staff could share the knowledge with individuals. ICT has brought about great hcanges in roganisational care skills traininggt; The organisations invest moneh in creation of the intranet portal, a website for the organization that has all information about he organization. IT is a pivotal point for staff training, resource storage for staff access like Policies and Procedures to follow in various care practices. The use of the Training portal minimizes cost in staff training and refresher course. This reduces travelling expenses for tranining rooms hire and ofre refreshments paid for by organisations. The use of ICT has become a spending cuts trategy for trnaing staff. Individuals have benefited from ICT by being able to access life learning resources and chatting online and going into dating websites to find parnters to share their lives with. ICT is highly used across the board to store indivdiuals records securely and only making them accessible by password by only those allowed to access them ICT also benefits the organization in creating templates for different recording systems for example, fluid charts, risk assessments, care plans, bowel movement charts, finance cash and expenditure logs as well as support logs. . 3 Various pieces of legislation have been enacted in line with the use of ICT in the workplace. These have been carefully drafted for implementation by the end users to include individuals, support workers, the organization and the general pblic. The copyright Design and Patents Act 1988 prohibits unauthorized access to acomputer materials ucha s computer proframmes software, training DVDs and computer virus software. An roganisat ion wil need to pay for software for its staff to access for Fire, Health and Safety and Food Hygiene and Epilepsy training. Some organization smay want to use the software at a lowe cost and they may borrow from other organisations. Doing so would be breaking the law in accordance*** and could face litgation. This could have a negative contribution othe organization;s financial standing. Support workers and other organization staff have a legal obligation in accordance with the Data Protect Act 1998 to protect individuals personal data. They are prohibited from sharing information stored about individuals and using their own ICT devises to do so. (Bernard Moss Communication Book) Moss B emphasizes htat â€Å"Never use your home computer for confidential work purposes. This could be a clear breach of the data protection: This could also be a problem if ones computer is steolen and the work is lost in on eway or the other. In that way, the safety of the idnividuals data is put at risk and it could eb seen,read or even used inappropriately wihotut their consent. In line with the Health and Safety at work Act HASAWA 1974, an ICT legislation known as the Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations, promotes healthy eyecare by enforcing the provision of eye and eye sight test by the employer as soon as the practicatbly requested by the employee at any given point. While the above legal obligations are usually met by both the employers and employees, it may not always appear obious that they do exist. They only come winto light when an incident relation to the ICT use occurs,. The legal considerations will always be met following the organisations policies and procedures and do have a strong impact on the smooth running of a health and social care organization.