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legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in wider society
The act places a duty on all public sector organisations to:

eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation in the workplace

advance equality of opportunity between people from different groups

foster good relations between people of different groups

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Health and Safety at Work Act 1974

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Manual handling procedures followed correctly to eliminate chance of injury

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Deferrals are made to the DBS when an employer or organisation believes a person has caused harm to vulnerable groups such as children

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what difference does it make to a HSC setting?

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what difference does it make to a HSC setting?

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it helps to ensure that people are valued and have the same access to all opportunities whatever their differences and therefore making sure everyone’s quality of care is the same.

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To complain about NHS, go to the Parliamentary and Health Services Ombudsman. If the complaint is about adult social care, you can go to the Local Government Ombudsman. If the complaint involves both NHS and adult social care, the Ombudsmen will work together on your complaint.

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The Care act 2014, sets out a clear legal framework for how local authorities and other parts of the system should protect adults at risk of abuse or neglect.

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Must attend required training so everyone follows correct procedures

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The Health and Social Care Act 2008

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The DBS Referral Policy is linked to the legislation Section 60 of the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006. They define a Child as “a person who has not attained the age of 18”.

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The medication policy looks at making sure the best medicines are used to benefit a patient, and the medicines used are cost effective, also that the medicines used are suited for people and the patient is involved in the process.
The Medicines Act 1968 is the legal basis allowing you to administer medication to people you support, in a social care setting.

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Carrying distances should be minimised, especially if the task is repeated. Repetitive tasks should be avoided where possible. Tasks that involve lifting and carrying should be designed to allow for sufficient rest breaks to avoid fatigue. Avoid tasks that require twisting the body where possible.

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The aim of the medication policy is to promote independence through encouraging service users to manage their own medication as far as they can. It also promotes the safety and well-being of the service users and provide safeguards to the care staff. Assistance with or administration of medication can only be provided with the consent of the service user, which can be written, verbal or non-verbal.

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a complaint or concern is an expression or dissatisfaction about an act, omission or decision of NHS England, either verbal or writen, and whether justified or not, which requires a response.

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Under the Care Act 2014, local authorities must: carry out an assessment of anyonewho appears to require care and support, regardless of their likely eligibility for state-funded care. focus the assessment on the person's needs and how they impact on their wellbeing, and the outcomes they want to achieve.

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Health and social care setting - Can reduce impact on the health and social care services, if policy is followed and cases are deferred it may prevent harm coming to vulnerable individuals which might lead to them needing medical or social care which will add pressure to these services

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It makes a difference to a health setting because administering medications to another person holds a lot of responsibility, so a policy has to be followed in order for it to be done correctly. On top of this, The overall aim of the Medication Policy is to promote independence through encouraging service users to manage their own medicines as far as they are able.

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Complaints may signal a problem with the services being offered which could be resolved if reported and investigated. People may be at risk of harm or may be experiencing harm, and by complaining they could be protected and provided with better care. Complaints can lead to changes in a service, improving the care and support that people receive. Individuals must have a resource which they can report issues and complaints to so that they can speak up if unhappy.

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A DBS check refers to the Disclosure and Barring Services, which helps employers make safer recruitment decisions and prevent unsuitable people from working with vulnerable groups, including children. This ensures the safety of any vulnerable individuals and helps to prevent harm coming their way.

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A complaint may be made by the person who is affected by the action, or it may be made by a person acting on behalf of a patient in any case where that person: is a child, has died, has physical/mental incapacity. has given consent to a third party acting on their behalf or has delegated authority to act on their behalf.

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- it assures the safety and quality of end of life care.
- it allows the new regulator to intervene where hospitals fail to meet standards
- promotes the confidentiality of patients and so earns their respect

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It is a legal requirement that every service must have a complaints procedure.

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Ensure everyone knows how to make a complaint and how a complaint will be handled.

Ensure that complaints are dealt with consistently, fairly and sensitively within clear time frames.

Ensure that complaints are monitored to improve services

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It does this by having particular characteristics e.g age which are protected under law from varying forms of discrimination

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Legislation- Registration under the Health and Social Care Act. 2008. Disclosure and Barring Service. (DBS)

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The response will include:
An explanation of how the complaint has been considered.
An apology if appropriate
An explanation based on facts.
Whether the complaint in full or in part is upheld.
The conclusions reached in relation to the complaint including any remedial action that the organisation considers to be appropriate. Confirmation that the organisation is satisfied any action has been or will be actioned. Where possible, we will respond to people about any lessons learnt.
Information and contact details of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman as the next stage of the NHS complaints process.

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DBS are required by law to consider any and all information which they are sent from any source. Including, information which is sent that does not met the legal refferal conditions. [Referrals to the DBS,2021]
A referral is information which is sent to the DBS about an individual which tells the DBS any concerns they have that the individual might be causing harm or putting adults or children at risk of being harmed. It is important in HSC to ensure that the professionals are DBS checked and any which show signs of mistreating patients are referred to the DBS so that they can ensure they are giving their patients the best care they can and making sure they are safe. [Referred to the DBS, 2021]

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Positively impacts vulnerable individuals, because they may not have the ability to report harm, following the policy will make them feel that their individual needs are being met

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Complaints that cannot be dealt with under this policy 

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Complaints that cannot be dealt with under this policy 

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The following complaints will not be dealt with under the Local Authority Social Services and National Health Service Complaints regulations (2009):
a complaint made by any NHS organisation or private or independent provider or responsible body,
a complaint made by an employee about any matter relating to their employment,
a complaint, the subject matter of which has previously been investigated under these or previous NHS regulators

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pan_Y_87Qrw

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Revealed: Over 30 deaths in Nottingham maternity units scandal

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Complaints will be handled in the strictest of confidence in accordance with the NHS England Confidentiality Policy, and will be kept separately from patient medical records. Care will be taken that information should only be disclosed to those who have a demonstrable need to have access to it.

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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/dec/15/parents-caught-up-in-worst-ever-nhs-maternity-scandal-feel-huge-guilt

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Mothers and fathers caught up in the worst maternity scandal in the history of NHS have a "huge amount of guilt" because they were not able to get the hospitals involved to listen to their complaints, MPs have been told.

Donna Ockenden, the midwifery expert leading a review into deaths and brain damage at the Shrewsbury and Telford hospitals (SaTH) told the health select committee that the trust's maternity services had a "focus on normal birth at pretty much any cost", an approach that had tragic consequences.

Ockenden's interim report last week into 250 out 1,862 cases under review, found that the rate of C-section births at the trust were significantly below the English and regional average.

Speaking to MPs on Tuesday, Ockenden said: "The one issue that stands out above everything else is a failure to listen to families. We've come across a lot of families who tried really hard to get the system to listen to them, and they carry on their shoulders now a huge amount of guilt because they feel that they failed to get the system to listen."

"There was also a culture [of] 'this is your fault' to the mother 'if you haven't done x, then your baby may have lived'. Not only not listening but blaming mothers, and mothers and fathers will tell you, they've carried that guilt for years."

Last week, it emerged that England's chief inspector of hospitals had expressed concerns about "cultural division" between midwives and doctors regarding "normal" and "interventional" approaches to childbirth. Ockenden revealed the scale of the problem to MPs on the committee. She said: "We have spoken to hundreds of women who have said to us they felt pressured to have a normal birth."

But Ockenden stressed that pressure for normal births at SaTH came from both obstetricians and midwives.

She said: "Caesarean section rates were considerably lower at the Shrewsbury health hospital when compared to trust locally, trust in the region, and trusts across England. But this came from across the professions, this came from obstetricians, it wasn't solely a midwifery issue. We will be writing more about it in our next report because it's something that we need to explore. It wasn't one profession battling against another."

She added: "The obstetricians were very much leading the way in Shrewsbury and Telford in terms of the push for normal birth."

She suggested more lives would have been saved if the trust had been more willing to offer C-sections. She said: "There were a number of cases where caesarean section should have been used earlier, and had it been used earlier, the outcome for mothers and babies would have been better would have been safer."

Asked whether the term "normal birth" should be dropped, Ockenden said: "I've met hundreds of families face to face in Shrewsbury and Telford and the very clear steer from those mothers and their extended families is that they want a birth that is safe.

Ockenden revealed that every NHS trust in the England was written to last night urging them to introduce sweeping changes to maternity services by 21 December.

She said: "I'm really delighted that the national system has now written note to all chief executives and chairs and CCGs and highlighting the key issues. Risk assessment is one of them. Listening to women's voices is another one. Everyone has understood the seriousness of the issues both raised in Shrewsbury and Telford and the absolute need for the wider system to look at everything that we are saying."

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Parents caught up in NHS maternity scandal 'feel huge guilt'

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Mothers and fathers caught up in the worst maternity scandal in the history of NHS have a "huge amount of guilt" because they were not able to get the hospitals involved to listen to their complaints, MPs have been told.

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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/shrewsbury-maternity-scandal/shrewsbury-maternity-nhs-inquiry-deaths-midwives-b1769131.html

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More than a dozen women and more than 40 babies died during childbirth at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust because of a culture that denied women choice and subjected hundreds of families to unsafe care, an official report into the NHS's largest maternity scandal has found.

Over decades, the Shropshire trust failed to properly investigate incidents of poor care by its staff with mistakes being repeated, according to the independent inquiry which is investigating more than 1,860 cases of poor care.

In some cases women had been medicated and forced to undergo traumatic forceps deliveries - leaving babies with fractured skulls and broken bones - because of a culture of trying to avoid deliveries by caesarean section.

The Independent last year revealed a leaked report from the inquiry that described more than 40 baby deaths and more than 50 children suffering brain damage at the trust, but since then the number of families complaining of poor care has more than doubled.

The official report published on Thursday, led by Donna Ockenden, said 13 women had died giving birth between 2000 and 2019 with two other deaths before 2000.
Shrewsbury maternity scandal: Inquiry sparks call for urgent overhaul of NHS maternity services
A majority of incidents examined by the inquiry happened during the past 20 years, it said, adding: "These included a number of maternal and baby deaths and many cases where babies suffered brain damage.

"Families have told us of their experiences of pregnancies ending with stillbirth, newborn brain damage and the deaths of both babies and mothers. These families have shared with us their accounts of the overwhelming pain and sadness that never leaves them."

An interim findings report said the hospital trust had caesarean section rates that were consistently 8-12 per cent below the average for England.

It said: "A typical quote during interviews was that 'they didn't like to do caesarean sections,'" adding: "Women who accessed the trust's maternity service appeared to have little or no freedom to express a preference for caesarean section or exercise any choice on their mode of delivery.

"There was a culture within the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust to keep caesarean section rates low, because [that] was perceived as the essence of good maternity care in the unit. Overall there did not seem to be a consideration of whether this culture contributed to unnecessary harm."

It said mothers had not been warned of the risks of giving birth in standalone midwifery led units far from hospitals, which in some cases led to catastrophic events including deaths.

"In many cases reviewed there appears to have been little or no discussion and limited evidence of joint decision-making and informed consent concerning place of birth."

The inquiry warned the attitude and compassion of some midwives and doctors was poor.

"One of the most disappointing and deeply worrying themes that has emerged is the reported lack of kindness and compassion from some members of the maternity team at the trust. The fact that this has found to be lacking on many occasions is unacceptable and deeply concerning.

"There have been cases where women were blamed for their loss and this further compounded their grief." Some concerns were "dismissed or not listened to at all" it said.

In one example from 2013 the report said a woman "was in great pain after delivering and left screaming for hours before it was identified that there were problems that needed intervention. The attitude of some midwives also made the situation worse."

In another case a woman giving birth in 2011 was called "lazy" by an obstetrician and was made to feel "pathetic" by staff who dismissed her complaints that she was in agony. The report said this lack of compassion and kindness "has persisted" in the trust over a period of years.

It also found the "clinical care and decision-making of the midwives did not demonstrate the appropriate level of competence" including failures to recognise when there were problems with births.

Rhiannon Davies, whose daughter Kate died after a series of errors at the trust in 2009, lobbied for the inquiry. Reacting to Thursday's findings, she told The Independent: "There can be no more complacency. There is a deep seated problem in maternity, a deeper seated problem in midwifery and a toxic issue at the heart of Shrewsbury's specific midwifery and obstetric services."

She said there was a culture of "normal birth at any cost" that had pervaded maternity services for decades and was part of midwifery ideology. "They need to accept when to escalate and not be arrogant. It's not an admission of personal failure. It's not letting your midwife colleagues down. You are not central to this. It's about the mothers and their babies. And too many of them are coming to harm in your care."

She said there were some staff at the Shrewsbury trust who had lied and blamed victims. "These people have caused death. They have caused catastrophic harm. They have caused untold suffering. They have no place in healthcare."

Responding to the inquiry's findings, Nadine Dorries, the minister for patient safety, said: "I expect the trust to act upon the recommendations immediately, and for the wider maternity service right across the country to consider important actions they can take to improve safety for mothers, babies and families."

As part of a culture to promote "normal" or vaginal births, women were regularly given the drug oxytocin, which increases the strength and frequency of contractions, against guidelines and when mothers or babies were already struggling.

The report said there were "many examples where oxytocin was used injudiciously; these cases occurred across the time period of the 250 cases reviewed, which suggests a failure to learn from previous cases where the outcome was poor."

In 2015 a woman whose baby was large was "persuaded to attempt a vaginal birth" despite requesting a caesarean section and having had an emergency caesarean section with an earlier child. The baby died a few days after birth and an investigation failed to acknowledge any poor care.

As early as 2000 women told the inquiry they felt their traumatic births were caused by the trust wanting to keep C-section rates low. In 2006 a woman whose baby was breech - or bottom first - was given oxytocin against guidelines. The baby died a few days later.

In some cases, the medication was used where babies were already demonstrating a dangerous heart rate and babies were delivered after long delays leaving them with brain injuries including cerebral palsy.

This culture and use of oxytocin also led to "excessive force" being used by doctors to deliver babies instrumentally using forceps, the report said.

It found there were "repeated attempts" of forceps delivery adding: "There was clear evidence that the operating obstetricians were not following established local or national guidelines for safe operative delivery."

In 2007 a baby died after suffering "multiple skull fractures" following repeated attempts at forceps delivery and in 2012 a baby had a fractured humerus after a forceps delivery when the mother's request for a caesarean section was refused. In a letter to the trust at the time, she said she felt the trust had wanted to keep its C-section rates low.

In another case during 2013 a baby died after two doctors repeatedly tried to deliver with forceps and then again in 2017 a baby suffered skull fractures and cerebral palsy after a forceps delivery. The report said there was no investigation into what happened.

The review said the cases showed attempts at vaginal deliveries that "should not have been attempted or should have been abandoned and the baby delivered by caesarean section. Some of these deliveries were undertaken by consultant obstetricians, which was particularly concerning."

The report said midwives failed to raise the alarm when there were problems and when they did doctors did not act on them properly which it said indicated poor teamworking. Other problems include failures to properly monitor babies' heart rates during labour, and not following up incidents with a full investigation.

The review found there were years of reports and recommended improvements which had not been implemented by the trust because of inconsistent processes.

"There is evidence that when cases were reviewed the process was sometimes cursory. In some serious incidents reports the findings and conclusions failed to identify the underlying failings in maternity care.

"The review team has also seen correspondence and documentation which often focused on blaming the mothers rather than considering objectively the systems, structures and processes underpinning maternity services at the trust."

"We have found clear examples of failure to learn lessons."

The report found a failure in leadership and a loss of what it called organisational memory by the trust which has had 10 chief executives since 2000 - eight since 2010 including four interims.

"As new CEOs started at the trust there was a tendency, until at least 2019, to regard problems at the trust as 'historical' or as a 'legacy' from previous years."

The report also singled out inspections by the Care Quality Commission for varying "considerably" between 2015 when the trust's maternity services were rated good, including for safety, and in 2018 and 2020 when the regulator was more negative and rated services inadequate.

The latter inspections were written only after widespread maternity concerns had already started to emerge.

The watchdog told The Independent it had also inspected the trust at the end of 2016 and rated the trust as requires improvement rather than good.

The Shropshire trust has been given 27 actions to improve safety including risk assessments for mothers at every antenatal appointment, better information and choices offered to women, improvements in baby monitoring and instructions that staff follow official guidance on care and use of oxytocin.

The trust has also been told to improve its investigation of incidents and that consultants must be involved in the care of all complex cases with twice-daily ward rounds on maternity units including night shifts.

A full report on the trust and considering all 1,862 cases will be published in 2021.

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'Woman left screaming for hours': How midwives and doctors failed mothers and babies at scandal-hit hospitals

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More than a dozen women and more than 40 babies died during childbirth at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust because of a culture that denied women choice and subjected hundreds of families to unsafe care, an official report into the NHS's largest maternity scandal has found.

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Safeguarding means protecting a citizen’s health, wellbeing and human rights; enabling them to live free from harm, abuse and neglect. It is an integral part of providing high-quality health care.  Safeguarding children, young people and adults is a collective responsibility (what safeguarding looks like in NHS)

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- could link it to the deaths due to covid 19, because it ensures that despite the fact there were a high number of deaths, individuals still got a high quality of post-life care

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-jersey-53323572

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Jersey government at risk of 'inefficient' complaints handling

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The States must do more to meet recommendations made by the Jersey Care Inquiry, an audit finds.