Duty of Care: Code of Practice

Duty of care is a requirement that all health and social care professionals, and organisations providing health and care services, must put the interests of the people who use their service first. They also have to do everything in their power to keep people safe of any harm, neglect or risk. As an individual healthcare worker you owe a duty of care to your service users, your colleagues, your employer, yourself and the public interest. All duty of care is described I Code of Practice. Duty of care means that you must aim to provide high quality care to the best of your ability. If for any reason you can’t do this then you must say so. You must adhere to a standard of reasonable care and you are expected to: • Keep your knowledge and skills up to date. • Provide a service of no less a quality than that to be expected based on the skills, responsibilities and range of activities within your particular trade or profession. • Be in a position to know what must be done to ensure that the service is provided safely. • Keep accurate and contemporaneous records of your work. • Not delegate work or accept delegated work, unless it is clear that the person to whom the work is delegated is competent to carry out the work concerned in a safe and appropriately skilled manner. • Protect confidential information except where the wider duty of care or the public interest might justify disclosure. • To keep individuals safe and free from harm. • To give individuals a choice. Duty of care also contributes towards the safeguarding of individual’s within the care home, as the Employer’s must ensure all potential employees complete a CRB check and each potential employee’s name will be checked against the POVA (Protection of Vulnerable Adults Scheme) list. Both checks must come back satisfactory to enable an individual to work within a care setting. Other people, (egz. community nurses) coming into the care home will have also