‘Duty of care’ refers to the relationship between myself and a service user, within this professional relationship there is an obligation to take responsible care to avoid injury or harm to whom it can be reasonably foreseen.
A duty of care exists to protect the individual from harm, to set guidelines, and promote safeguarding. Failure to provide a duty of care may lead to foreseeable injury or harm. 1.2: Describe how the duty of care affects our work role.
It is my responsibility, as a care worker to ensure that I provide a good standard of care, to ensure the service users are safe, happy with the care they receive, and protected from harm/abuse, whether physical, or psychological/emotional, perpetrated by service users, staff members, friends/family/peers, etc.
I work within the safeguarding policies and maintain them. My employer is responsible to ensure that all staff receive adequate and appropriate training and guidance to ensure they can recognise and understand signs of abuse and neglect.
It is my responsibility to record and report any relevant information when an accident or incident occurs in the workplace, to report any case of bad practice and behaviour that I believe may contribute or lead to abuse.
Duty of care and safeguarding go hand in hand, as it is my duty of care to safeguard service users, whilst maintaining their rights, choice and respecting their wishes. 2.1: Describe dilemmas that may arise between the duty of care and the individual’s rights. It is my duty of care to support my service users with medicines and food preparation. One morning the individual may refuse one or the other, it is my duty to encourage the service user to let me support them with these tasks, as it is in their best interests, but the important factor is to always respect the