Work Practice Portfolio of Healthcare Support Service

Evaluate the work practice organisation in terms of status and size in relation to both Irish economy and world economy:

Before Silver Linings Nursing Home became a nursing home it was once home to a bishop. Silver Linings Nursing Home is where I am currently working, it is a private nursing home just outside Kilkenny city and is a large two story premises with 68 beds and houses elderly clients manly clients that suffer with dementia or Alzheimer’s. In Ireland because people are living longer there is a more need for care homes or nursing homes for the elderly, right now in Ireland there are over 400 private and voluntary nursing homes  who cater to over 20,000 people. Silver Linings Nursing Home currently employs both full and part time nurses and healthcare workers, it is a 24 hour care facility which means it is open 24 hours a day 365 days a year, Other than the nursing and healthcare staff Silver Linings Nursing Home also employ chefs and kitchen staff, housekeeping, maintenance staff and administration.

Summarise the work practice organisation’s structure, main aims, and overall objectives:

Silver Linings Nursing Home offers residential, nursing and dementia care provided by our team of well-trained and qualified people who are concerned with every single resident’s welfare and happiness. Silver Linings Nursing Home is committed to providing a person cantered holistic service which endeavours to promote the respect and dignity of our residents in a homely setting which offers privacy, choice and independence. While observing other staff members in my workplace I’ve noticed how kind and caring they are to each resident individually and how they cater to each individual need of their residents.

Silver Linings Nursing Home aims are to provide:

High standards of residential, nursing & dementia care, Respectful, kind & caring interaction with every single resident, Experienced & professional staff, A home combining practical features with a comfortable & elegant design, Private single bedrooms with en suite wet-rooms, Nutritious menus created by our head chefs using well sourced local ingredients, Plentiful activities & events for residents, Responsive approach to residents & families’ suggestions, A home where residents enjoy living & families enjoy visiting

Evaluate the impact of globalisation, new technology and science on the work practice organisation:

Silver Linings Nursing Home not a part of globalisation, nowadays people are living longer and the average lifespan has gone from 67 years old in 1960 to 82 to this day present. A child born today can be expected to live to the age of 100 years which is an amazing jump for the average age years ago to 67. At the same time in the western world the birth rate is falling, at present in Ireland the birth rate is dropping below 2.1, all of this is putting pressure on the state in relation to the care of the elderly. The working population is shrinking also but people are living longer, one answer to this is to keep people working longer past the old retirement age which used to be around 60 is not at 70, this strategy is common in the western world.

There will be a greater emphasis on homecare new technology is being developed to assist with homecare. In some part of the United States those requiring homecare are chipped and this chip records all their vital bodily activities such as heartbeats, blood pressure, blood sugar and temperature. The carer then scan’s the chip and all the information about that client is sent back to the health centre and kept on file.

Trinity College in Dublin embarked on a study with ageing called TILDA, which looked into the process of ageing and the information is shared with the HSE. One report of the study was a greater awareness of Alzheimer’s and its impact on the health services, another area that impacts in care of the elderly is information technology, people can be monitored at home visually and carers can check in on their client by phone. Other technology that can affect the elderly is medical advances, today we have hip and knee replacements, and in the near future we will have organ replacements all of this will also raise ethnicity questions such as how long do we keep a person alive because technically we can keep a person alive indefinably. To summarise, new developments and technology can assist greatly with caring for the elderly and improving their quality of life. But the one black spot is we haven’t for dementia or Alzheimer’s.

Summarise the main legislation and regulations relevant to your work practice organisation specifically relating to health, safety and welfare at work, employment, equality and matters related specifically to the context of the organisation:

Health & Safety legislation:

This legislation was put into action in 2005 and ensures that all employers must provide a safe place for their employees to work in. in Ireland there are an estimate of 50 workplace deaths per year and a number of 150 accidents reported to the HSE per week and 90% of accidents in the workplace are down to human error. To prevent accidents at the work place the health & safety put out rules and regulations that both employers and employees must follow.

Under the 2005 act the HAS (health and safety authority) was set up, they have four main purposes they include,

• Enforce legislation, it’s important that when new staff members are being hired into work that they read fully and understand the workplaces legislation.
• Advise minister on health & safety
• Investigate all accidents
• Inspect all new products e.g. hoists, equipment that staff and residents will be using on a daily basis.

Every workplace has to have a safety statement, A Safety Statement is a written action programme for safeguarding the health and safety of those at work. It details how health and safety is managed in the workplace, which for fishing means the boat. Every workplace has a person who is responsible for the health & safety in the organisation and there is a safety committee and plan for an emergency for example if there is a fire in my workplace all the residents will be evacuated to the nearby hotel until further notice. All employees at the facility must be given the safety plan and made aware of what to do in cases of an emergency, in my workplace we all attended a fire safety course which taught how to evacuate residents in case of an emergency. All employees are obliged to read and understand the health and safety statement, in the safety statement it outlines the responsibility of both the employer and employee. Everyone in the workplace is responsible for carrying out health & safety, every work organisation even a corner shop must have a safety statement passed by the HAS before opening.

Equality Act in the workplace, there are 9 grounds of the equality act which are:

1. Race- as Ireland is an expanding country there are a lot of foreign nationalities coming into the country, so it’s important that because of their race that they are not discriminated.
2. Gender
3. Travelling people
4. Religion
5. Disability
6. Sexual origination
7. Martial statues
8. Family

All of the above topics are forbidden to be asked in an interview with an employer.

Rights and Obligations of employer, duties of employer:

Provide a safe place of work e.g. proper signage around the facility and proper and working equipment that will be used by employees and residents, ensure that the premises are safe, wiring, plumbing in working and safe order. To ensure all staff working in the facility is properly trained e.g. trained in manual handling, using hoist, how to properly use PPE and how to dispose of it. Ensure that all staff read and understand the safety statement, ensure that no bullying going on in the workplace. Provide suitable and proper PPE for staff to use.

Duties of employee, under the act employees also have duties:

To attend all provided in the workplace e.g. attend manual handling, first aid etc, and use PPE correctly have knowledge about equipment and to look after the equipment that is used on a daily basis, report any faults or damages to the equipment or premises as soon as possible. Not to attend work under the influence of any drugs or alcohol. To report any bullying or inappropriate behaviour, and lastly to take care of yourself being a care assistant is a tough job and it’s important to always look after yourself so you’ll be able to look after someone else.

In my workplace we have policies around most activities and we develop procedures from them such as:

Recruitment, you must have or be working towards a level 5 in healthcare or social care, in my facility they take in people with no qualification and pay for them to complete their level 5 online, this means you must enter into a contract with the organisation for at least 2 years. At present I am working at Silver Linings Nursing Home I am not fully qualified but am working toward completing my level 5 so this policy affects me directly. In my introduction in Silver Linings Nursing Home I was given the safety statement to read and all the emergency procedures. A big thing for me is the evacuation procedures for e.g. I am directly responsible for the evacuation of 3 named residents on my corridor. We have a policy on confidentiality which means: ‘Confidentiality is one of the core duties of medical practice. It requires health care providers to keep a patient's personal health information private unless consent to release the information is provided by the patient’

Equality policy: this means that there should be no discrimination in the care facility regarding staff and or residents, as Ireland is a growing country it is very common to have elderly people who are of foreign origin residents in care homes.

References:

• (https://www.hsa.ie/eng/)
• (https://www.hiqa.ie)