A1: Working within the health and science sector

• Codes of Conduct (CoC) clarify missions, values, and behaviours of a profession
• Codes of Conduct promote the rights of patients and their family
• Regulations and standards are created by professional regulating bodies such as the GMC, NMC, and HCPC
• Professionals must register with the regulating body and complete training to stay in their jobs
• Codes of Practice ensure that people in specific job roles work within the laws and care values
• Individual organizations write policies and procedures to outline expected behaviors and responsibilities
• Duty of care involves maintaining care that meets legal requirements and standards, reporting concerns, and delivering care as per individual care plans
• Duty of candor involves being open and honest with patients and their families, including apologizing for mistakes
• Equality means treating individuals fairly and providing equal opportunities
• Diversity means recognizing and understanding the uniqueness of each individual
• Inclusion means ensuring that everyone has a voice and can participate, making reasonable adjustments as needed
• Discrimination refers to treating individuals unfairly and disadvantaging them compared to others
• The purpose of an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy is to comply with legislation, ensure fair treatment, prevent discrimination, and promote social inclusion.
• Safeguarding provides guidelines on what the organization needs to do to protect individuals' health, wellbeing, and human rights.
• The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act (SVGA) 2006 aims to prevent harm by preventing unsuitable individuals from working with children and vulnerable adults.
• DBS checks enable employers to check the criminal records of employees and potential employees to determine their suitability to work with vulnerable groups.
• Employment contracts outline the employment conditions, policies, rules, and requirements agreed upon by the employer and employee.
• Performance reviews, such as PMR or appraisal, evaluate an employee's professionalism and performance in their job role.
• Training can be requested to improve knowledge and skills in safeguarding.
• Performance reviews can identify training needs and request training for areas of poor performance or skills growth.
• Training is referred to as Continued Professional Development (CPD).
• A disciplinary policy is necessary to set and maintain expected standards of work and conduct, ensure consistent and fair treatment, and establish a sequence for disciplinary action.
• Line managers have a role in sorting out disciplinary action for staff who do not maintain care values, policies, and procedures.
• Disciplinary levels include malpractice and misconduct, with repeated misconduct/malpractice potentially leading to dismissal and restrictions on working with vulnerable people.
• Grievance procedures provide a formal way for employees to raise serious issues or complaints to their employer.
• Informed consent is a process in which patients are given important information about a medical procedure or treatment, genetic testing, or a clinical trial to help them make a decision.
• The Nuremberg Code is a set of ten core principles regarding research and treatment of humans, including the requirement for voluntary, well-informed consent.
• Autonomy refers to a person's ability to act on their own values and interests, ensuring that consent is freely given.
• Beneficence means obtaining consent for a procedure that will benefit the patient, while nonmaleficence involves the duty to do no harm or allow harm to be caused to a patient through neglect.
• Adhering to quality standards, quality management and audit processes within the health and science sector ensures consistency, maintains health and safety, monitors processes and procedures, facilitates continuous improvement, and facilitates objective, independent reviews.
• The key principles of ethical practice in the health and science sectors are autonomy and informed consent, truthfulness and confidentiality, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice.
• The purpose of equality, diversity and inclusion policy:

  • complies with legislation
  • ensures fair and equitable treatment
  • prevents prejudice and discrimination
  • promotes social inclusion
  • tackles the cycle of disadvantage
  • promotes respecting, celebrating and valuing individuals
• The purpose of safeguarding policies

  • provides guidelines on what the organisation needs to do to protect individuals’ health, wellbeing and human rights
  • ensures the protection from harm of individuals, including those working within the organisation, service users and visitors
  • outline the roles of different agencies involved in safeguarding (for example local authority adult social care services and children and young people social care services, GPs, hospitals, education settings, Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC))
• The purpose of employment contracts

  • setting out employment conditions, rights, responsibilities and duties
• The purpose of performance reviews

  • evaluating work performance against standards and expectations
  • facilitating feedback to improve
  • providing opportunities to raise concerns or issues
  • contributing to continuing professional development (CPD)
• The purpose of the disciplinary policy

  • setting and maintaining expected standards of work and conduct
  • ensuring consistent and fair treatment
  • establishing a sequence for disciplinary action
• The purpose of a grievance policy

  • providing opportunities for employees to confidentially raise and address grievances
  • establishing a sequence for raising grievances
• The importance of adhering to quality standards, quality management and audit processes within the health and science sector:

  • ensuring consistency

  • maintaining health and safety

  • monitoring processes and procedures

  • facilitating continuous improvement

  • facilitating objective, independent reviews (for example enquiries into failures in safeguarding)
• The key principles of ethical practice in the health and science sectors:

  • autonomy and informed consent

  • truthfulness and confidentiality (for example ensuring validity of outcomes)

  • beneficence

  • nonmaleficence

  • justice (for example fairness, equality and respect for all)
• The purpose of following professional codes of conduct:

  • clarifies missions, values, principles and standards that everyone must adhere to by:

  o outlining expected professional behaviours and attitudes

  o outlining rules and responsibilities within particular organisations

  o promoting confidence in the organisation