A0_Assignment

Assignment A0 In this essay I am going to give a brief overview of the different acts and policies and then explain how they relate to my job role. Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 This act gives people the knowledge about health and safety at work and what they have to put into practice to make it effective. It lays out requirements for employers and employees to ensure safety is given while working. Employers’ duties include the provision and maintenance of department and safe working systems, safety when working with substances, to provide information, instruction, training and supervision of employees and to ensure safe work place access and exits. They also have a duty to non employees, such as patients, visitors including contractors. Employees have a duty to take care of the health and safety of themselves and others. They should take steps to understand the hazards in their workplace and follow safety rules and procedures. Employers and employee that fail to follow the health and safety procedure may be liable to be prosecuted. Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulation 1999 These regulations are set out for employers to ensure that they give the correct training which will include information and knowledge about health and safety and how employees should put their training into good practice. There should be a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risk exposed to employees at work as well as the risk to people not in their employment that could be harm in connection with the conduct their undertaking. These people include clients, bank or agency staff, volunteers, contractors and students.  All of the people that could be affected should be made aware of all risks and measures that will be taken to reduce those risks.  Employers must implement preventative and protective measures when working in hazardous workplace. They must also ensure all employees have had all the necessary health and safety training. Employees have a duty to take care their own health and safety, use provided equipment and to report any unsafe work practices. Reporting of injuries, diseases and dangerous occurrences  1995 (RIDDOR ‘95) This act/policy is about recording and reporting incidents in a health and social care setting. It explains that there is a legal requirement to report accidents, incidents and ill health at work; this enable the health and safety executive and the local authorities to identify where and how risks arise.  Manual Handling Operations regulation (MHOR) 1992 This act came into force in January 1993; it is one of six health and safety at work regulations. Manual handling operations refers to any transporting or supporting of a load by hand or bodily force. Employers have certain duties when it come to manual handling; they should avoid any manual handling operations where possible and should consider if a load should be moved at all. They should also access any hazardous operations that cannot be avoided and reduce the risk of injury; the task, the load, the working environment and the individuals capability should be considered.  An employees’ duty is to make full and proper use of any system provided such as manual handling training which will show them practical ways of reducing risk in their work area, they then should put these ways into use. COSHH - Control of substances hazardous to health This law requires employers to access and manage the risk related to storing and handling disposal hazardous substances. This should be known by all staff that works in a health and social care setting. Employers should provide the equipment, give training, and provide appropriate equipment/clothing to their employees. The employee should use equipment and wear appropriate clothing provided; they should also report any incidents or concerns and fault with the equipment.   Lifting operations and lifting equipment regulations 1998  (LOLER ‘98) These regulations apply to lifting equipment in all areas of the industry and work alongside MHOR ‘92 and PUWER ‘98. The purpose of the regulations are to reduce risk of injury from lifting equipment used at work. All equipment should be installed and positioned to minimise risk and used safely. They should also be thoroughly examined and any defect should be reported. Provision and use of work equipment regulations 1998 (PUWER ‘98)  These regulations cover all equipment used at work including manual handling and lifting equipment. They establish a range of duties such as the employer must provide suitable work equipment; provide information, instruction and training for all persons that will be using working equipment. Every employer should ensure that work equipment is only used for suitable operations. Human Rights Act (HRA) 1998 This act ensures that public bodies such as the NHS trust; do not breach the rights set out in the convention. The aim along with other health and safety legislation is to provide a framework in which balanced decision making can be developed. The acts sets out a number of wide-ranging rights Mental Capacity Act (MCA) 2005 This act came into force in October 2007 and only affects people over the age of 16.  A set of guidelines to empower and protect people who may lack the capacity to make decisions for themselves, decisions such as someone’s property or their healthcare treatment. For example people with dementia, learning disabilities or mental health problems. It makes clear who can take decisions in which situations and how they should go about it. Corporate Homicide and Manslaughter Act 2007 This act clarifies when companies are liable for fatalities in the work place, if the reasons being are serious failures of management of health and safety. If there is any evidence of; the management of an activity or a breach of duty of care are the result of a death the organisation will be found guilty. The things that will be looked at when it comes to duty of care are systems of work; equipment used by the employees, condition of work sites and other premises that being used. In incidents like these, juries will take into account how serious and dangerous the breaches were and how they may have resulted in a fatality.  Health and Social Care Act 2008 This act gives the care quality commission a health and adult social regulator, who power to inspect, investigate and intervene when care workers are not providing care that meets the safety and quality requirements including hygiene standards. The Care Quality Commission’s objective aim is to protect and promote the health, safety and wellbeing of people that use health and social care services.  Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 This act provide the legislative structure for vetting and barring people wishing to work with vulnerable adults and children within regulated and controlled activities. This included both paid and unpaid work. It explains how decisions are made about who should be barred; these decisions are made by the Independent Safe Guarding Authority (ISA). A person is considered an vulnerable adult if they are under the age of 18 and in need of care including age, illness, mental disability or unable to protect themselves against exploitation or significant harm including abuse. This includes if they are receiving any form of health care treatment, therapy or palliative care. Equality Act 2012 This act aim is to protect people from discrimination in the work place and in society; It sets out different ways in which its unlawful to treat someone. There are many types of discrimination such as race, sex, sexual orientation, disability religion or belief, age or being pregnant/having children; these are known as ‘protected characteristics’. You are protected from discrimination in certain situations including at work, in education, as a consumer, using public services and buying or renting property. Data Protection Act  This act defines the laws of processing data of a living and identifiable individual. It creates rights for those who have date stored and responsibilities of those store and process the data. All personal data should be processed fairly and lawfully, it should be kept accurate and up to date and only kept as long as it’s necessary. There should be appropriate measures taken to ensure that there is no unauthorised or unlawful use of the date.   Infection control Hand hygiene is vital; all staff must follow the correct hand washing technique so that the bacteria that are made throughout the day are destroyed. Washing your hands protects other people as the bacteria cannot be transferred. There are hand washing posters that show the correct way of washing your hands, which shows the specific parts of the hand that collect the most bacteria. There should always be safe disposal of sharps so that staff, patients and general public are protected from diseases that are passed on by sharps and to protect them from harm. All staff should be trained on how to dispose of sharps safely so that patients aren’t at risk. Sharps should be disposed of in the yellow buckets and should not go above the line; the disposal is the responsibility of the user. The blood, body fluids and tissues of all patients should be regard as potentially infectious, and in any event of a sharps injury first aid action must be taken immediately. Uniform Policy A uniform policy is a set of guidelines that describes the standards of dress and appearance that employees must follow. These standards are put in place to ensure that an organisation to portraying a good and professional image. Within in the hospital there are different guidelines depending on where you work, there are ones that will apply to all staff however some will differ for example the rules that apply clinical staff will not apply to non clinical staff. Different department will also differ when it comes to wearing a uniform, within catering we are provide with our uniform but in for example offices such as the access office, they are able to wear their own clothes but still in keeping to the general policy of good and professional appearance. PPE Act 2002 PPE stands for Personal Protective Equipment; it is set of regulations that comes under the Health and Safety act 1974. It describes the duty of an employer to provide suitable personal protective equipment to their employee, to stop their health and safety being at risk while at work. PPE are things such as disposable gloves, aprons, eye and face protection; different PPE should be used when undergoing different tasks. The Health and Safety Act 1974 also states that employers are not allowed to charge for any PPE. From learning about these acts and policies, I am now going to go into further detail about Health and Safety at Work Act, Uniform Policy and PPE and how they relate to my job role. In the catering department we are provided with uniform, this includes some PPE i.e. hats, steel toe cap shoe and aprons. PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) is used to protect employees from risks that could happen in the work place. Theses will be identified by a risk assessment. Hats are required to be worn in the kitchen when stepping over the blue line, in this zone is where the majority of food handling and cooking taking places. Steel toe cap shoes should be worn during you shift, this is to prevent injury if you accidentally drop something on your foot. We also use disposal blue gloves when handling food, at the coffee shop this would be when we are making toasted sandwiches or when cutting up cakes. Our manager has the responsibility of providing us with our uniform as well as appropriate PPE. It states in YDH uniform policy that the managers should carry out a risk assessment of the work place, that way they will be able to identify the appropriate clothing and footwear. They are also required to provide a sufficient amount of uniform so employees can insure it is cleaned daily. Employees have the responsibility to comply with the uniform policy, and failure to do so could result in disciplinary action. Personal hygiene should be kept to an acceptable level. In catering we are required to wear our hair up if longer than collar length and to keep jewellery to a minimum , stud earrings and a wedding ring are acceptable as well as necklaces as long as they underneath your uniform.    In the YDH policy is also states that uniform must be worn at all times but only at work, wearing your uniform outside of work is not permitted. This is important because it will reduce infection therefore protecting staff, patients and customers. Due to working with food and drink it is important not to wear you uniform outside, to prevent bringing in any germs. A part of the YDH uniform policy is that an employee’s dress and appearance should portray a professional corporate image, this is a important part of our job in the coffee shop because is it a customer service job and requires us to come face to face with customers all day. It is important for a us to give a good and professional impression because we represent our department and the hospital.  The Health and Safety at Work etc Act applies to everyone that work at the hospital, it’s  purpose is to protect people at work as well others that could be affected by work activities.  Employers have the duty protect their employees, they do this by ensuring that all equipment that we use in the coffee shop has been PAT (Portable Appliance Testing) tested and had regular maintenance; 5 yearly fixed installation testing and inspection; and inspection and testing of lighting protection systems, which is stated in the YDH Health and safety policy. This would apply to the coffee machine, the toastie machine, toaster, the dishwasher and both fridges. It is also important that the shutter is in any good working order. All fixtures such as cupboards and cabinets above the head, should be secure.  Employers should make sure that all employees attend 2 yearly mandatory training, in catering these will include manual handling and fire safety. It is important to take this training so we know how to lift correctly and the best way to push and pull the trolleys. And so we know what to do in the situation of the fire alarm going off. As employees we have the duty of looking after ourselves and others such as colleagues and customers. To ensure the health and safety while working at the coffee shop we need to make sure that everything that needs to switched off is switched off at the end of the shift. When shutting the shutter at the end of the shift, we should watch it to ensure that no one tries to pop their head under therefore not resulting in an injury. We should be careful not to burn ourselves when using the coffee machine and the toastie machine as they are very hot. We also have a duty to report of incident or accidents that may occur, in accordance to the regulations of RIDDOR ‘95. We are also required to report and default or problems with any equipment in our department.  We have a duty to ensure our customers are safe, we can so this by making sure that all chairs and tables are secure and stable. We can offer them trays for carrying their drinks or offer to carry their drinks for them if there need help. It is important to make sure there are clear walk ways so they can enter and exit easily, this is also in relation in fire safety.