Agreed Ways of Working Essay

Agreed ways of working, this is exactly how you will work. It is important to know what is expected of you in your role and in turn what to expect from others. In health and social care, there are agreed ways working you will have with an employer; also, with service users. Some examples of agreed ways of working in health and social care are: An agreed way of working with an employer would be to follow safety procedures relating to health and safety, for example, to follow the Food Hygiene Regulations 2005. This regulation concerns how food should be handled safely to avoid contamination and food poisoning. This is in order to protect the service user from potential harm; in addition, it is a legal requirement. An agreed way of working could be to protect the service user’s confidentiality. As long as a situation does not place the service user in danger or give cause for concern, then a care worker must keep information given to them confidential. It is the responsibility of the healthcare worker to handle information appropriately; this applies to all information whether it is an opinion given verbally, social information, or financial or medical records. If this agreement would be broken then trust would be lost between service user and carer; additionally, it is likely to cause disciplinary action. The refusal to accept any gifts or money from service users, their families or other carers, would be an agreed way of working. This would be to protect both employer and employee from any legal allegations concerning the gifts in the future; also, this protects the professionalism of both employer and employee and protects these boundaries. This would be an agreed way of working with both employer and service users. Another agreed way of working would be to conduct your work within your expected limits and abilities. In each job there are responsibilities and duties you are trained to perform, you agree to not exceed these limits; an example of this would be if a care worker administered medication to a service user without the appropriate training. Such an occurrence could cause serious or potentially fatal harm to the individual the care worker is supposed to protect, disciplinary action would be taken and possibly legal action additionally. An agreed way of working with a service user would be to treat the individual with dignity, compassion and respect.