How The Regulations Contribute To The Health And Safety At Work Act 1974
There are many regulations and guidelines that need to be adhered to within theatre practice and clinical governance. The role of an Operating Department Practitioner covers many different aspects of clinical practice within theatre and therefore it is vital that they possess a working knowledge of these regulations. This essay will look at professional practice in relation to role of the Operating Department Practitioner.
It will focus upon the Health and safety at work act 1974, this will look at the responsibilities of both employee and the employer and the implications these regulations have upon operating department practice. The need for effective communication and information governance, How evidence-based practice contributes to the …show more content…
provision of effective patient care, The need for risk assessment and incident reporting. This includes areas such as the control of substances hazardous to health (COSHH) and the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR). Another area looked at within this essay will be at the many organizations involved in the regulation and the creation of guidelines for best practice within operating theatres. The difference between the Operating Department Practitioner’s regulatory body the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) and the Governing body The College of Operating Department Practitioners (CODP). The scope of practice set by the COPD and the Standards of proficiency set by the HCPC will be an area discussed. Another area this essay will focus upon is that of information governance and communications and the vast importance this plays in the role of the ODP in the workplace.
The health and safety at work act (1974) has many regulations that need to be adhered to by both the employer and the employee. This is a legally binding act of government and it puts varying responsibilities on both the employer and employee. These have different implications and when looking at the role of the ODP within theatres there are a few regulations that are particularly important to focus upon. The Health and Safety at work act is also supplemented by specific regulations, these regulations are approved by parliament and are enforced by the law. These regulations include the COSHH regulations (2002) and RIDDOR (amended 2013). These regulations come under the umbrella of the Health and Safety at work act 1974.
The health and safety at work act was brought about as a way of securing the health, safety and welfare of persons at work.
The duties imposed on the workplace differ for the employer and the employee. According to the Health and safety at work act 1974 ‘It shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of the employee’. This indicates that the employer can lawfully avoid taking measures if those measures are viewed to be impossible, too expensive or the time and effort would be greatly disproportionate to the risk that the measures are in place to protect the employee from. This helps the employer comply with the act without putting themselves at risk of reducing workforce or going out of business due to health and safety acts imposing unrealistic and expensive measures for very small risks within the workplace. There are many other areas of the health and safety at work act that the employer has to comply with for the safety of their employees, these include areas such as correct training, information and instruction in the use of equipment, there is also a huge need for the employer to provide safe working equipment and ensure that the systems are in place for the safe operation of these machines. Another area the employer must pay particular attention to is that materials, and chemicals used are properly used, stored, handled and transported. This also ties into one of the many regulations that help …show more content…
underpin the health and safety at work act, the control of substances hazardous to health (COSHH) requires an employer by law to control substances that are hazardous to health. This could include a wide range of substances including chemicals, fumes, dust and vapors. The role of an ODP requires regular contact with Hazardous substances. The operating theatre is full of COSHH controlled substances. When reviewing the health and safety at work act 1974 including its many regulations including COSHH we need to look at the work place and the risks involved within those workplaces. An operating theatre contains a wide range of COSHH controlled hazardous substances, these include anaesthetic gases which are both dangerous and as there name ‘volatile agents’ would suggest are very volatile, the two commonly used anaesthetic gasses used are Sevoflurane and Isoflurane. These are particularly dangerous as these gases are combustible, this is particularly important when looking at the use of electrosurgical instruments such as diathermy as diathermy can create a spark. Diathermy also creates an issue within theatre as diathermy creates surgical smoke. ‘Smoke from diathermy and lasers has been shown to contain low concentrations of toxic gases and vapours such as benzene, hydrogen cyanide, formaldehyde, bioaerosols, dead and live cellular material (including blood fragments and viruses); these produce an unquantified infection risk. The smoke causes ocular and upper respiratory tract irritation, is highly obnoxious, and creates visual problems for the surgeon. There is evidence of mutagenic potential’. (http://www.bohs.org/uploadedFiles/Groups/Pages/Surgical_smoke.pdf)
Best practice therefore dictates that surgical smoke evacuator be used when using diathermy as the gases produced are dangerous to the health of the theatre practitioners.
This surgical smoke is not only dangerous to the staff within the theatre but also to people outside theatres in theatre corridors, this is due to the nature of the air flow systems used which both pump air out of the theatres into the corridors through small vents. There is however in my local trust a reluctance by many surgeons to use the surgical smoke evacuators as they are said to be large and awkward to handle and also obscure some vision. Another area affected by best practice is the use of PPE when disposing of soda lime from the anaesthetic machine. Best practice and local policies dictate that PPE must be used. When changing Soda lime, gloves must be used along with an apron as the person disposing of the soda lime can be splashed with calcium hydroxide, this corrosive irritant is a product of a chemical reaction involved in soda
lime. The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) is another regulation under the umbrella act of the Health and safety at work act. This covers the reporting of incidents at work, however it is only necessary to report to RIDDOR when, there has been an accident which caused the injury, the accident was work-related and the injury is of a type which is reportable. A reportable injury is the death of any person at work, specific work related injuries as stated in regulation 4 of RIDDOR. It also covers any injury that incapacitates and worker for over 7 days or injuries to non-workers which result in them being taken directly to hospital for treatment, or specified injuries to non-workers which occur on hospital premises.
Evidence based practice should be the major underpinning factor in an ODP’s practice within theatre. "Evidence-based medicine is the integration of best research evidence with clinical expertise and patient values." (Sackett D et al. Evidence-Based Medicine: How to Practice and Teach EBM, 2nd edition. Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh, 2000, p.1) this view of evidence based practice should have a massive impact in the role of an ODP. Evidence based practice plays a big role in ODP practice when looking at the many different aspects of the health and safety at work act 1974. The College of Operating Department Practitioners is the professional body for ODP’s they set a scope of practice for registered Operating Department Practitioners and this should enable the ODP to know and understand the limits of their practice within the profession. The CODP asks the practitioner in this scope of practice whether they are aware of, and have considered, any evidence-based practice. This shows the huge importance of evidence-based practice within the practitioners knowledge and skills. An area where evidence based practice is particularly important is hand-washing and patient contact. Hand-washing has been identified as a major contributing factor in the spread of disease. There are two main ways of removing infections bacteria from the practitioners hands and that is soap and water and alcohol based products. Local trusts use evidence based practice to create a policy that dictates visibly soiled hands must use soap and water whilst alcohol can be used when hands are not visibly soiled before each patient contact.
The health and safety at work act 1974 creates many obstacles within the theatre however it also put into place many safety measures for the employees. The role of the employee in relation to the health and safety at work act places responsibility for his or her own actions and create a safe working environment for both themselves and other employees. The official legislation states that ‘it shall be the duty of every employee while at work to take reasonable care for the health and safety of himself and of other persons who may be affected by his acts or omissions at work; and as regards any duty or requirement imposed on his employer or any other person by or under any of the relevant statutory provisions, to co-operate with him so far as is necessary to enable that duty or requirement to be performed or complied with’.
(http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1974/37/section/7)
This act puts a huge impetus on the employee to make sure that not only they are safe but also they maintain a working environment that is safe for all their colleagues.
Within the workplace the need for incident reporting is of paramount importance. One of the largest and most widely used ways of incident reporting is the Datix system. Datix has been around for almost 30 years and aims to create an environment within theatres where incidents and near miss events are reported to make sure these never happen again. Datix is a risk management software, used for patient safety, this includes risk management and adverse event reporting. This can include events such as needle stick injuries or possible near misses due to patient positioning. This helps ensure excellence within the healthcare system. The importance for incident reporting is huge and is vital to ensure the safety of both patients and healthcare professionals. Risk assessment helps with incident reporting, every task requires risk assessing. A risk assessment looks at a task or an object and looks at what factors, if any could cause harm or potential danger. When looking at the role of an ODP and the environment that an ODP has to work in, there are many potential risks and hazards that could cause harm not only to the ODP but their work colleagues and even affect the safety of the patient in their care. Risk assessment is key to the smooth operation of a theatre. It is also necessary to report incidents or near misses this helps to underpin the risk assessments put in place. Due to the nature of the job patient positioning and manual handling is a necessary task. Local policies and national guidelines are put in place to ensure the safety of both the patient and theatre staff. Local policy suggests at least four members of staff or as deemed appropriate by a manual handling risk assessment, must be available to ensure the safe positioning of the patient and to avoid injury to staff. This policy has been put into place following a risk assessment of the task and possible dangers involved in patient positioning. Any incidents or near misses that happen during the handling and positioning of patients during this process would be reported to Datix. An example of this would be a patient sliding down a table during surgery. This would then be reported to Datix and then investigated. A resolution and then action plan would be put into place to ensure that this doesn’t happen again. This could include the use of a high-friction gel mat on operating tables during surgery.
It is clear from all these regulations under the Health and safety at work act that there is a great need for effective communication within not only the ODP’s direct team with items such as the WHO checklist for safe surgery, but the wider hospital environment and the national guidelines. The WHO checklist sets out to make sure there are no mistakes in the site of operation and the identity of a patient. The WHO suggests a team brief for the theatre team and this ensures all members of staff in that theatre team have the relevant information on the patients, this allows the ODP and other team members to prepare properly for any possible incidents or difficulties during the perioperative process such as diabetes or suspected difficult airways. The WHO checklist also imposes a number of STOP moments before surgery to double and triple check the patients name, patient number and surgical site.
The regulatory body of the ODP is the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). This regulatory body sets out many codes of practice that the register ODP needs to adhere to. The two main texts for the ODP focus upon are the HCPC standards of conduct, performance and ethics, and The HCPC standards of proficiency for Operating Department Practitioners. These texts set out the expectations of the HCPC of you and you must adhere to all of these areas in order to keep your registration as an ODP. The standards of conduct, performance and ethics also makes note on the need for effective communication with both service users and other practitioners. It states, “ You must take all reasonable steps to make sure that you can communicate properly and effectively with service users. You must communicate appropriately, cooperate, and share your knowledge and expertise with other practitioners, for the benefit of service users.”
http://www.hcpc-uk.org/assets/documents/10003B6EStandardsofconduct,performanceandethics.pdf
It will focus upon the Health and safety at work act 1974, this will look at the responsibilities of both employee and the employer and the implications these regulations have upon operating department practice. The need for effective communication and information governance, How evidence-based practice contributes to the …show more content…
provision of effective patient care, The need for risk assessment and incident reporting. This includes areas such as the control of substances hazardous to health (COSHH) and the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR). Another area looked at within this essay will be at the many organizations involved in the regulation and the creation of guidelines for best practice within operating theatres. The difference between the Operating Department Practitioner’s regulatory body the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) and the Governing body The College of Operating Department Practitioners (CODP). The scope of practice set by the COPD and the Standards of proficiency set by the HCPC will be an area discussed. Another area this essay will focus upon is that of information governance and communications and the vast importance this plays in the role of the ODP in the workplace.
The health and safety at work act (1974) has many regulations that need to be adhered to by both the employer and the employee. This is a legally binding act of government and it puts varying responsibilities on both the employer and employee. These have different implications and when looking at the role of the ODP within theatres there are a few regulations that are particularly important to focus upon. The Health and Safety at work act is also supplemented by specific regulations, these regulations are approved by parliament and are enforced by the law. These regulations include the COSHH regulations (2002) and RIDDOR (amended 2013). These regulations come under the umbrella of the Health and Safety at work act 1974.
The health and safety at work act was brought about as a way of securing the health, safety and welfare of persons at work.
The duties imposed on the workplace differ for the employer and the employee. According to the Health and safety at work act 1974 ‘It shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of the employee’. This indicates that the employer can lawfully avoid taking measures if those measures are viewed to be impossible, too expensive or the time and effort would be greatly disproportionate to the risk that the measures are in place to protect the employee from. This helps the employer comply with the act without putting themselves at risk of reducing workforce or going out of business due to health and safety acts imposing unrealistic and expensive measures for very small risks within the workplace. There are many other areas of the health and safety at work act that the employer has to comply with for the safety of their employees, these include areas such as correct training, information and instruction in the use of equipment, there is also a huge need for the employer to provide safe working equipment and ensure that the systems are in place for the safe operation of these machines. Another area the employer must pay particular attention to is that materials, and chemicals used are properly used, stored, handled and transported. This also ties into one of the many regulations that help …show more content…
underpin the health and safety at work act, the control of substances hazardous to health (COSHH) requires an employer by law to control substances that are hazardous to health. This could include a wide range of substances including chemicals, fumes, dust and vapors. The role of an ODP requires regular contact with Hazardous substances. The operating theatre is full of COSHH controlled substances. When reviewing the health and safety at work act 1974 including its many regulations including COSHH we need to look at the work place and the risks involved within those workplaces. An operating theatre contains a wide range of COSHH controlled hazardous substances, these include anaesthetic gases which are both dangerous and as there name ‘volatile agents’ would suggest are very volatile, the two commonly used anaesthetic gasses used are Sevoflurane and Isoflurane. These are particularly dangerous as these gases are combustible, this is particularly important when looking at the use of electrosurgical instruments such as diathermy as diathermy can create a spark. Diathermy also creates an issue within theatre as diathermy creates surgical smoke. ‘Smoke from diathermy and lasers has been shown to contain low concentrations of toxic gases and vapours such as benzene, hydrogen cyanide, formaldehyde, bioaerosols, dead and live cellular material (including blood fragments and viruses); these produce an unquantified infection risk. The smoke causes ocular and upper respiratory tract irritation, is highly obnoxious, and creates visual problems for the surgeon. There is evidence of mutagenic potential’. (http://www.bohs.org/uploadedFiles/Groups/Pages/Surgical_smoke.pdf)
Best practice therefore dictates that surgical smoke evacuator be used when using diathermy as the gases produced are dangerous to the health of the theatre practitioners.
This surgical smoke is not only dangerous to the staff within the theatre but also to people outside theatres in theatre corridors, this is due to the nature of the air flow systems used which both pump air out of the theatres into the corridors through small vents. There is however in my local trust a reluctance by many surgeons to use the surgical smoke evacuators as they are said to be large and awkward to handle and also obscure some vision. Another area affected by best practice is the use of PPE when disposing of soda lime from the anaesthetic machine. Best practice and local policies dictate that PPE must be used. When changing Soda lime, gloves must be used along with an apron as the person disposing of the soda lime can be splashed with calcium hydroxide, this corrosive irritant is a product of a chemical reaction involved in soda
lime. The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) is another regulation under the umbrella act of the Health and safety at work act. This covers the reporting of incidents at work, however it is only necessary to report to RIDDOR when, there has been an accident which caused the injury, the accident was work-related and the injury is of a type which is reportable. A reportable injury is the death of any person at work, specific work related injuries as stated in regulation 4 of RIDDOR. It also covers any injury that incapacitates and worker for over 7 days or injuries to non-workers which result in them being taken directly to hospital for treatment, or specified injuries to non-workers which occur on hospital premises.
Evidence based practice should be the major underpinning factor in an ODP’s practice within theatre. "Evidence-based medicine is the integration of best research evidence with clinical expertise and patient values." (Sackett D et al. Evidence-Based Medicine: How to Practice and Teach EBM, 2nd edition. Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh, 2000, p.1) this view of evidence based practice should have a massive impact in the role of an ODP. Evidence based practice plays a big role in ODP practice when looking at the many different aspects of the health and safety at work act 1974. The College of Operating Department Practitioners is the professional body for ODP’s they set a scope of practice for registered Operating Department Practitioners and this should enable the ODP to know and understand the limits of their practice within the profession. The CODP asks the practitioner in this scope of practice whether they are aware of, and have considered, any evidence-based practice. This shows the huge importance of evidence-based practice within the practitioners knowledge and skills. An area where evidence based practice is particularly important is hand-washing and patient contact. Hand-washing has been identified as a major contributing factor in the spread of disease. There are two main ways of removing infections bacteria from the practitioners hands and that is soap and water and alcohol based products. Local trusts use evidence based practice to create a policy that dictates visibly soiled hands must use soap and water whilst alcohol can be used when hands are not visibly soiled before each patient contact.
The health and safety at work act 1974 creates many obstacles within the theatre however it also put into place many safety measures for the employees. The role of the employee in relation to the health and safety at work act places responsibility for his or her own actions and create a safe working environment for both themselves and other employees. The official legislation states that ‘it shall be the duty of every employee while at work to take reasonable care for the health and safety of himself and of other persons who may be affected by his acts or omissions at work; and as regards any duty or requirement imposed on his employer or any other person by or under any of the relevant statutory provisions, to co-operate with him so far as is necessary to enable that duty or requirement to be performed or complied with’.
(http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1974/37/section/7)
This act puts a huge impetus on the employee to make sure that not only they are safe but also they maintain a working environment that is safe for all their colleagues.
Within the workplace the need for incident reporting is of paramount importance. One of the largest and most widely used ways of incident reporting is the Datix system. Datix has been around for almost 30 years and aims to create an environment within theatres where incidents and near miss events are reported to make sure these never happen again. Datix is a risk management software, used for patient safety, this includes risk management and adverse event reporting. This can include events such as needle stick injuries or possible near misses due to patient positioning. This helps ensure excellence within the healthcare system. The importance for incident reporting is huge and is vital to ensure the safety of both patients and healthcare professionals. Risk assessment helps with incident reporting, every task requires risk assessing. A risk assessment looks at a task or an object and looks at what factors, if any could cause harm or potential danger. When looking at the role of an ODP and the environment that an ODP has to work in, there are many potential risks and hazards that could cause harm not only to the ODP but their work colleagues and even affect the safety of the patient in their care. Risk assessment is key to the smooth operation of a theatre. It is also necessary to report incidents or near misses this helps to underpin the risk assessments put in place. Due to the nature of the job patient positioning and manual handling is a necessary task. Local policies and national guidelines are put in place to ensure the safety of both the patient and theatre staff. Local policy suggests at least four members of staff or as deemed appropriate by a manual handling risk assessment, must be available to ensure the safe positioning of the patient and to avoid injury to staff. This policy has been put into place following a risk assessment of the task and possible dangers involved in patient positioning. Any incidents or near misses that happen during the handling and positioning of patients during this process would be reported to Datix. An example of this would be a patient sliding down a table during surgery. This would then be reported to Datix and then investigated. A resolution and then action plan would be put into place to ensure that this doesn’t happen again. This could include the use of a high-friction gel mat on operating tables during surgery.
It is clear from all these regulations under the Health and safety at work act that there is a great need for effective communication within not only the ODP’s direct team with items such as the WHO checklist for safe surgery, but the wider hospital environment and the national guidelines. The WHO checklist sets out to make sure there are no mistakes in the site of operation and the identity of a patient. The WHO suggests a team brief for the theatre team and this ensures all members of staff in that theatre team have the relevant information on the patients, this allows the ODP and other team members to prepare properly for any possible incidents or difficulties during the perioperative process such as diabetes or suspected difficult airways. The WHO checklist also imposes a number of STOP moments before surgery to double and triple check the patients name, patient number and surgical site.
The regulatory body of the ODP is the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). This regulatory body sets out many codes of practice that the register ODP needs to adhere to. The two main texts for the ODP focus upon are the HCPC standards of conduct, performance and ethics, and The HCPC standards of proficiency for Operating Department Practitioners. These texts set out the expectations of the HCPC of you and you must adhere to all of these areas in order to keep your registration as an ODP. The standards of conduct, performance and ethics also makes note on the need for effective communication with both service users and other practitioners. It states, “ You must take all reasonable steps to make sure that you can communicate properly and effectively with service users. You must communicate appropriately, cooperate, and share your knowledge and expertise with other practitioners, for the benefit of service users.”
http://www.hcpc-uk.org/assets/documents/10003B6EStandardsofconduct,performanceandethics.pdf