Unit 5 Health and Social Care Distinction (2025)

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• Uploaded on November 6, 2020
• Number of pages 62
• Written in 2019/2020
• Type Essay
• Professor(s) Unknown
• Grade Unknown

Subjects

• unit5
• health
• social care
• health and social care

• 5

Written for

• Study Level BTEC
• Examinator PEARSON (PEARSON)
• Subject Health and Social Care 2016 NQF
• Unit Unit 5 - Meeting Individual Care and Support Needs

All documents for this subject (254)

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Introduction

As part of Unit 5: Meeting Individuals Care and Support Needs, I will be exploring the
ethical issues as well as skills required to meet individual needs in health and social
care. This unit will introduce how to provide personalised care that is tailored to meet
the needs of all service-users whilst also maintaining their dignity and helping them
to make best interests decisions. Furthermore, I will be reflecting on the different
methods used by professionals when working together in a multi agency team to
provide a package of care that meets all of a service-users care and support needs
and helps to maintain both their health and wellbeing. I will also be investigating the
roles of professionals in working to meet the care and support needs of individuals
and how they can work as a multi-agency organisation to help provide care for
individuals and assist them in overcoming challenges that they might face.
Learning Aim A requires me to examine the principles that underpin meeting care
and support needs of individuals such as principles, values and skills. For Learning
Aim B, I will be examining the ethical issues that are often involved when providing
care and support to meet the needs of individuals. According to Learning Aim C, I
will be investigating the principles behind enabling individuals with care and support
needs to overcome challenges. Learning Aim D requires investigation of the roles of
professionals and how they work together to provide the care and support necessary
to meet individual care and support needs.
Learning Aim A | Examine principles, values and skills which underpin meeting the
care and support needs of individuals.
A.P1 | Explain the importance of promoting equality and diversity for
individuals with different needs.
Equality can be defined as “means ensuring everyone in your setting has equal
opportunities, regardless of their abilities, their background or their lifestyle.” (Petty.L,
2016). In health and social care, all service-users must experience equality,
regardless of their characteristics or abilities as denying a service-user access to an
activity or service due to their characteristic breaches The Equality Act 2010. The
Equality Act 2010 replaced a variety of previous anti-discriminatory acts and aims to
protect all service-users from both direct and indirect discrimination. The Act has
specific characteristics that are protected such as: age, sexuality, marriage or civil
partnership, religion, sex, gender reassignment and pregnancy/maternity. For
example, all service-users are entitled to have appointments at their local GP
Surgery, however certain service-users may have different needs and reasons for
attending which may result in their appointment taking more or less time depending
on the severity of their need. Furthermore, not all service-users attending a GP
Surgery will require the same amount of time with a Doctor however as long as all
service-users have access to the service, the GP Surgery will still be adhering to the
Equality Act 2010. Promoting equality helps to ensure that service-users feel
comfortable in health and social care settings and do not experience discrimination
which could have a negative impact on their health and wellbeing. If equality was not
promoted, service-users would experience unjust discrimination which could have
severely detrimental impacts on their health and wellbeing and would also create
issues for the health and social care settings as they may be investigated externally
as their behaviour would not be acceptable or according to the National

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Occupational Standards.
Diversity “means appreciating the differences between people and treating people’s
values, beliefs, cultures and lifestyles with respect” (Petty.L , 2016). Ensuring that
health and social care settings promote diversity helps to promote equality as there
will be a representation of a large variety of service-users to ensure that all service-
users feel welcomed by services and are not afraid to attend service appointments.
Valuing diversity ensure that all cultures and societies are respected by health and
social care settings and therefore feel comfortable engaging with services which will
help to ensure that all of their individual care and support needs are met. Living in a
multicultural society helps to promote and improve the delivery of health and social
care services, it also helps professionals and service-users to access a wide range
of skills and expertise from varying cultures and societies which helps to ensure
professionals can maintain and continue their CPD to provide more effective practice
and services.
Promoting both equality and diversity helps service-users to experience a higher
standard of care from health and social care services as they will feel more
comfortable accessing services due to feeling represented and included. Moreover, it
also assists professionals in being able to maintain their CPD as they are able to
experience a wide range of cultures and learn new skills and abilities through
interaction with a diverse range of service-users and colleagues. Furthermore,
varying cultures will have different needs and beliefs which will expose health and
social care professionals to a new and different belief system which will help to
challenge themselves and learn how to appropriately meet the care and support
needs of a variety of service-users, each with their own respected beliefs and
cultures.
A.P2 | Explain the skills and personal attributes necessary for professionals
who care for individuals with different needs
In December 2012, a national strategy for nurses, midwives, and care professionals
was released to help improve the values exhibited by health and social care
professionals. The national strategy was titled : Compassion In Practice, and aimed
to “ work through six action areas” (Skills For Care, 2019) and help individuals to
recognise “the very crucial role that organisational culture plays in determining the
experience of patients and users of services” (Skills For Care, 2019). The strategy
was influenced by the standard of care failings at Mid Staffordshire Hospital and
Winterbourne View, which specialised in meeting the needs of individuals with
learning disabilities and autism.
The first principle of the strategy is care which can be defined as looking “ after and
providing for the needs of a person” (Pearson, 2019), care is a core element in
health and social care practice as it helps professionals to meet the needs of
service-users through a personalised approach which helps to ensure service-users
feel empowered and are comfortable with their care, believing it is in their best
interests.
Health and social care professionals must also have compassion to be successful in
their line of work and provide a high standard of care for all service-users.
Compassion can be “described as intelligent kindness, and is central to how people
perceive their care” (Skills For care, 2019) as without compassion, healthcare

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professionals would be detached from their patients and subsequently would be
unable to provide the highest standard of care as they may be unable to identify any
problems that the service-user is experiencing.
Professionals must also be competent and therefore “must have the ability to
understand an individual’s health and social needs and the expertise, clinical and
technical knowledge to deliver effective care and treatments based on research and
evidence” (Skills For Care, 2019). If care professionals were incompetent they would
be unable to provide safe and efficient care as they would be unaware or unable to
apply certain research to an individuals care plan which would cause delays in
treatment for the service-user.
Another key principle is communication, care professionals must be able to
communicate with a service-user to be able to identify and treat any issues that are
highlighted. Furthermore, good communication skills help to promote “effective team
working” (Skills For Care, 2019) and can therefore promote a high standard of multi
agency working as all services will be able to forward any information received in an
effective way which would help to ensure service-users received the highest
standards of care.
Services must also ensure that all employees have the courage to do the right thing
and make important decisions with regards to patient care. To ensure that
professionals work with courage, they must have the “personal strength and vision to
do the right thing for the people being cared for” (Pearson, 2016) which will help to
allow new and innovative ideas to brought forwards in healthcare settings and
subsequently allow services to embrace new ways of working.
Finally, care professionals must be committed to their job and therefore be able to
“improve care and meet the needs of people” (Pearson, 2016) through determination
and resilience in their workplace. Having commitment to their work allows nurses,
midwives and care professionals to provide a constant high standard of care and
therefore make best interests decisions for service-users.
Ensuring all midwives, nurses and care professionals work to the same high
standards and provide the best care possible ensures that service-users are not put
at risk and can be effectively safeguarded in health and social care settings. Since
their creation, the 6 C’s have been used in NHS values, recruitment, leadership and
learning to ensure that all levels of skill and all ages are able to develop the required
characteristics to work in health and social care. If the 6 C’s are not met by care
professionals, failures in practice may quickly be experienced due to professionals
not having the required attributes to provide a high standard of care. For example,
the failures at Mid Staffordshire Hospitals that triggered the creation of the
Compassion in Practice may have arisen due to the lack of standards in place for
care professionals which is why the national strategy was created and implemented
across the country to help regulate the care provided in all health and social care
services.
Health and social care professionals must also have strong people skills to be able
to build relationships with individuals and therefore provide the highest quality care
possible. Generally, “good people skills are defined as the ability to listen, to
communicate and to relate to others on a personal or professional level”
(McQuerrey.L , 2018). Certain people skills help professionals to be able to work to a

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high standard such as: empathy, patience, engendering trust, flexibility, sense of
humour, negotiating skills, honesty and problem solving skills.
Empathy can be defined as “the ability to share and understand the emotions of
others, such as sadness, anxiety or happiness” (McQuerrey.L , 2018). When care
professionals are able to show empathy with individuals, they are able to give more
personal levels of attention which therefore allow them to develop a more secure
relationship with service-users.
Professionals must also exhibit patience when working with service-users to ensure
that they are “able to maintain an even temper” (McQuerrey.L , 2018) when dealing
with difficult situations and do not become frustrated or annoyed with a service-user.
This allows for a professional to understand situations better and maintain a
professional appearance as they will not easily become irritated or annoyed with
individuals.
Furthermore, trust must be developed between a service-user and professional to
ensure a professional is able to receive honest responses from patients and
therefore create a more effective and personalised care plan. This allows for a strong
relationship to be developed between service-users and professionals which ensures
that a high standards of care is provided.
Professionals must also be flexible in their work and be able to change and adapt
their decisions and ideas to best suit the needs of service-users and therefore. Being
flexible helps to ensure that professionals are able to adapt to meet the needs of
service-users without and pre-judgments and are able to dedicate extra time to
individuals to ensure that their treatment is effective.
Often, it is useful for professionals to have a sense of humour, which means that
they will be able to see the funny side in situations, when working with service-users
to ensure that situations remain lighthearted. However, health and social care
professionals must also be able to judge how and when to use humour whilst
working with service-users to ensure that they are always appropriate and do not
offend service-users.
Moreover, health and social care professionals must be able to appropriately
negotiate with service-users to meet a middle ground and still ensure the health and
wellbeing of an individual. Negotiation can be defined as “the process by which two
parties with different interests or perspectives attempt to reach agreement” (Pearson,
2016), for example a Doctor and a patient may disagree with one aspect of a
treatment plan so may therefore come to a negotiation that still ensures the
wellbeing of a service-user, but also meets their needs and preferences.
Honesty is also a key personal skill that helps to maintain relationships, especially
within health and social care settings. Being honest means telling the truth and being
sincere which, in a health and social care setting, ensures that service-users feel
respected and are not lied to which helps to improve the relationship between
professionals and service-users.
Furthermore, many situations in health and social care settings require professionals
to have strong problem solving skills and “ask the right questions and find an answer
to a problem” (Pearson, 2016). For example, if a service-user comes into the setting

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