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Report is all about NT 2065 Health and Safety in the Workplace- Health, Safety and Environmental Management

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NT 2065 Health and Safety in the Workplace

 

Health and Safety in the Workplace

INTRODUCTION

When people think of health and safety, it is not an idea limited just to the comfort of their beds. They take every step to ensure its continuance everywhere, including the places of their work. In modern times, a lot of organizations are putting workplace safety measures and health management protocols to practice ensuring a hassle-free and a non-hazardous environment for both the workers and the customers. A complete health and safety management system comprises four essential factors, which can reduce illnesses and other human health hazards (HHH), such as, “Management leadership and employee involvement, Worksite analysis, Hazard prevention and control and Safety and health discipline” (Holloway, 2018).

However, in recent times, the systems tend to malfunction every now and then, with certain loopholes being overlooked, causing a disruption in the permissibility. As a federal audit inspector, a visit to a specific workplace of a certain nature would help bring out some observations- both conventional and modern- which culminated in a conclusive report for further retrospect and inquiry. It also would develop newer horizons for improving workplace camaraderie and replacing discord with harmony, hence. Psychological and environmental barriers are paramount in a workplace and should be diagnosed with utmost care. This study will be centred round the workplace observations and results done by visiting National health service acute hospitals ine ast Midlands, UK while

dealing on bacterial and acute infections and their associated health hazard... and safety measures taken by the hospitals.

SECTION (A)

a)Your observations/findings of the safety and health conditions from the workplace inspection exercise

Despite several measures and state-of-the-art infrastructure, Europe faces a severity in healthcare-associated burdens and anomalies and UK seems to be one such country. In one statistical report, a report of 79.4% of the annual gross expenditure was accounted for government-financed healthcare, amounting to a total of £152.2bn and £191.7bn for the same in private sponsorship. Yet, as of 2016, 525,000 deaths were recorded in the entire nation. So, the causal factors were as such:

The hospitals, mostly, don’t have a lot of area coverage. Hence, the patients or new entrees are kept waiting before they can be attended. However, the visitors are given ample space, leading to a situation of disparity and a psychological aura of inferiority is reflected on the hospital staff (Zingg et al., 2015). Despite the enormous amount of money shelved out for healthcare, political mis-judgements often rule out the lesser hospitals and the hospital equipment goes out of date. The patients, as a result, suffer the aftermath of illegitimate diagnosis and conventional methods of treatment.

Some rules are too strictly followed or unnecessary in hospitals, leading to a mutual discord between the staff and the patients. It eventually creates a pattern of discord and hesitation and doubt often leads the patient to go in more expensive healthcare institutes, which would be quite expensive (Braithwaite, Wears and Hollnagel, 2015). The lesser medical firms not only lose the average base of their clientele, but the patients also suffer both psychologically and financially, resulting in a call for change.

According to reports, of late, employees who are academically more qualified to be specialists end up getting lower posts, due to a dearth of vacancies in the NHS-affiliated hospitals and care centres. Despite having better experience of patient disorders, they are tasked simply with the management regulations and safety schemes and a sense of disgruntlement exists perpetually. Doctors on rotational shifts have a disregard for their essential work and use the allotted time for personal benefits, leading to a unanimous discontent amongst patients and their next of kin (theguardian.com, 2019).

By April 2017, 15,722 deaths within the hospital premises were reported, the cause being over-crowding of wards and lack of adequate workforce. Sepsis deaths and other communicative diseases are also getting a better edge due to lack of public awareness. The hospitals who are adequately well-financed and managed with better manpower of good quality control septicaemia, leaving the lesser-equipped clinics and care centres in a dire state of acute hazard. According to Prof. Sir Brian Jarman, the number of options to gain better accessibility for in-progress reports of the wards could help visitors and other members take effective steps to reduce this phenomenon (bbc.com, 2019).

Bed blocking is another troublesome issue amongst most NHS hospitals. The current scenario states that the staff need to manage and be strict with their respective wards, not overlooking the line of indulgence that could affect, otherwise. Most patients, notably, occupy beds that they don’t need. So, the newer applicants for the same bed are issued an unnecessary wait-time which adds to a degradation in their health (Wager, Lee and Glaser, 2017). This also cause a great amount of psychological discord between patients often leading to arguments within the premises.

On an average basis of the observations, most of the findings relate to the problems on safety compliance from the patients and the health systems by the hospital authorities. In addition, the state audits overlook the flaws in the regulation policy of the hospitals and add to the noxious indulgence of doctors on-duty. To sum it up, most of the hospitals, despite being affiliated to NHS UK, have conventional methods of attending their patients or prospective clientele (Cochrane, 2016). The more expensive ones get the year-end nudge from the finance ministry for better benefits while the majority of the same form the ignorable backdrop of the current scenario of the health and safety management system. Future measures are being put to practice but are not tested against extreme conditions frequently, leading to the scepticism behind complying to the same.

 

 

 

SECTION (B)

b)Specific regulations relating to some identified hazards or unsafe conditions

While most of the HSE regulations have been penned meticulously, a certain impasse exists on the current employees whether those rules are worth followed and implemented. This is the result of mutual disagreements between the management and the employee staff, furthered by the disgruntled patients trying to get their money’s worth.

1.            A survey shows that numerous patients ridicule the staff at disposal for taking inadequate care and citing inattention to their plight. This gives them a nudge of indulgence to ask for more attention, thus causing stress (both physically and psychologically) amongst the working community. This leads to mal-treatment of patients and hasty interruption of services or permanent annulment of the otherwise diligent and stable employees. The hospital regulations state that the wards be released immediately back to the normal environment, at the doctors’ specific instructions with post-surgical treatment continued if necessary (Robson et al., 2007).

2.            Bed blocking can be avoided if the hospital equates other costs (for necessary equipment) with that of additional beds or other places. NHS was designed for accident and emergency; so, the ideal policy states that the hospital should have a competent amount of beds with each patient allotted a separate on-shift nurse. It should not suffocate the overall influx of patients in that area (Yorio, Willmer and Moore, 2015).

3.            Doctors should be increased in quantity and be given better training every single month. The state policy recommends the training schedule and pattern to be entirely at the discretion of the hospital management.

4.            Most patients have a shortcoming which, if not addressed in the immediate eventuality, might tend to act a tad harsh on the administration and the employees- they do not have the thorough knowledge of the overall quanta of policies. As the hospital terminology is not very legible to the common man, the hospital expects their employees to deliver the cues on dos and don’ts, which reduces the time for effective treatment to the wards (Koivupalo et al., 2015). This results in additional chaos, for which the hospital does not have penalty clauses.

5.            When a serious epidemic covers a certain area, all the care centers and the associated infirmaries are diverted to the immediate control of the uprising. This leads to the present group of patients being adversely affected, due to less manpower and treatment facilities. The state policy states that the government relief programs should be initiated for volunteers or other healthy civilians during such pandemics. Better would be the contingency plan of marking permanent residents as a volunteer task force on emergency health missions, should the need ever be. That helps in lesser preparation time for designated hospital staff and additional influx of emergency labor.

6.            The NHS in UK is massively under-filled, according to reports and investigations. The excessive expenditure on hospitals and ambulance services are also partly to blame. The private sectors have been largely financed to avoid or relieve the hard-pressed units within A&E. The state policies need an extensive and radical change in its policies and its outlook should be strictly concerned to the welfare of the units with severe penalties on non-compliance of any sort (Mitchell et al., 2016). Recently, the NHS improvement department released a report on the new changes recommended as a way to tackle such problems. In the eventuality, if the hospital unit does not fare well together, the wards won’t have it any better.

SECTION (C)

C) Evaluate critically health and safety policy in place

From the above observations and factual information, it has been understood that healthcare sector majorly operates in a critical professional service environment, which confronts everyday difficulties in delivering a high quality as well as affordable care- a series of objectives, which some healthcare professionals believe are incongruous. Observations suggest that although a comprehensive lean orientation has a straightforward and effective influence on client safety, it influences economic performance in an indirect process with the help of internal integration (Dobrzykowski, McFadden and Vonderembse, 2016). The outcomes have significant implications for developing client safety and economic performance in health and safety management process within service organizations along with increasing operations more broadly.

The health and safety policies are, even though well manifested in the blueprint, In need of extensive execution at the grassroots level. There are certain policies that the NHS UK has amended for better efficacy and certain others that have been overlooked due to their lesser implementation. This leads to non-uniformity of following rules and regulations and an overall inconsistency within the staff.

•             For example, most hospitals are well-equipped with fire-control measures as a part of the safety policy. However, when it comes to containing such a situation, most of the staff lack the proper knowledge, adding to a lower response rate which involves the fire brigade to administer the entire situation from scratch. More than the knowledge, the employees are not scheduled with a drill task for handling such sensitive situations.

•             This audit also helped in discovering that evidently, there are lots of patients who are under-cared for and others who get the maximal benefits even if they don’t need so. Hospital staff is also apparently reported to be seen in engaging in social activities (Talking with patients, etcetera) which adds to the cutback in time management. The audit report has clearly demonstrated the inevitability that stern measures to be applied on such wrong-doers in future and an immediate contingency plan to be put to place for suspension of repeating offenders.

•             Newer channels for employee involvement should be addressed with utmost care and a properly supervised counter-productive overwatch, thus ensuring that all the levels of the healthcare hierarchy, contributes to the task, adding to maximum output through quality. Self-inspection programs, feedback forms, scheduled bi-monthly trainings, job hazard analyses are some of the applicable recommendations for the near or distant imminence.

•             A psychological report of a similarly natured audit disclosed and highlighted that critical workplace behavioral analysis is of cardinal importance to improve and increase the performance levels of the workers. Patients should be cared enough to the point where indulgence is not mistaken for cordiality and should be sternly dealt with as and when they violate the rules or breach a code of conduct. Another recommendation is the next of kin should be advised ahead of time about the hospital’s policy for ward behavior, should the concerned facility announce any. This would ensure an established line of the knowhow within the facility premises, and its liability to a court of law if it is breached, anyway.

•             Hospitals and infirmary facilities, nursing homes, asylums and even veterinary units have been advised time and again to create public awareness of the policies and the ministry of health (UK Parliament), with the help of WHO and other world institutions of a similar nature are tasked with the attentive disposal of its resources towards achieving the same goal. However, the medical and administrative terminology doesn’t get to the common mind easily. The audit recommends an alternate draft of policies for the common eye with immediate effect and the marketing to be thorough and lucid. There is no denial that time will help the citizens at large.

•             When it comes to handling of equipment, hospital staff training is absolute. Even though every hospital has authorized training schedules and appointed experienced instructors separately, some of the mishaps or in-situ deaths happen due to the lack of equipment-handling clue. Orientation programs should be monitored with rewards for the better performing to help the staff improve their quality skills.

•             Lastly, one of the major issues in hospitals are underpaid staff and ill-designated people, adding to the phenomenon of under-performance. A qualified doctor should not be a nurse and a managing executive of a healthcare firm cannot simply be a consultant. A major overhaul of the hierarchical placement strategy should be implemented with a revised pay-scale for each of the strata members, as the audit report conclusively suggests.

CONCLUSION

This study has been helpful in pointing out the current health and safety processes within the organizations and how they are maintaining them with the changing demands of patients as well as the changing safety measures. Initially, this study has been helpful in pointing out the health and safety conditions within an organization and has pointed out the fact that there are many rooms for changes in the health and safety organizations in overall UK. Mostly, an important thing has been pointed out, which relates to the communication gap between the patients and staffs. This area should be taken as an important issue that can affect the structural process of organizations and productivity level of the staffs. On the other hand, significant hazards have been identified with supportive explanations that are pointing out the fact that though there have been various regulations and rules to develop and strengthen the overall health and safety conditions in the organizations, lack of proper surveillance is causing disbalance between completion of the regulations and their effectiveness. 

This study is also useful in underlining important factors relating to the changing measures in the health and safely organizations. Critical evaluation of the current health and safety measurements in the organization have been helpful in suggesting the important changes need to be done in the health and safety companies, which will be helpful to develop the productivity level as well as professional service providence methods. Apart from these important facts, this study has been useful in examining the most important factor in dealing with the clients is establishing effective communication with them. Communication is also an important factor in maintaining the structural working balance within the health and safety companies as mentioned in the study.

 

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