Potential Hazards Essay

Relating to the physical environment; If you were in a care setting e.g. Residential home, and the ventilation stopped working, or was not working as it should do. For example if some of the residents had an illness that could be passed on through air, then the probability is that all the residents and also staff would end up with the illness this is an acquired infection. Equipment; If you were in a care home for elderly people and they couldn’t use their legs or get up from sitting down you would have to use a hoist to help them up which is more time consuming, but it is against the law to drag lift them onto their feet. Therefore that is why staff have to use hoists, if a member of staff wanted to use the hoist to help someone up and it was broken this would be poor maintained and this could result in injury. Infections; If you were in a hospital and people were given certain needles, and they was not getting disposed of properly needles and all sharps are meant to be disposed of correctly in a yellow sealed box, if the needles wasn’t disposed of properly this would be an expose to danger and also hazardous waste. If they were not disposed of properly and were left lying about and someone accidently got injected with one of the used needles then this could cause an infection. Substances; In a care setting everything should always be clean for health and safety reasons, if a cleaner had been in and was bleaching the toilets and forgot to put the bleach back after cleaning them and one of the patients or residents went to use the toilet and seen the bleach they might have drunk the bleach which this chemical could cause chemical burns to the throat which is expose to danger. Working conditions; In a residential home sometimes they can be short staffed, which could lead staff to be overtired from the extra shifts, it could also make the staff rush and not be following all the procedures properly, not working to their best ability and also rushing their notes  throughout the day this could cause psychological distress to members of staff. Working practices; If you we were in a residential care home the would have to keep the doors and windows locked downstairs so they know who is going in and out of the building for security purposes, this security systems is really effective, but on the negative side this could result in loss of time. For example if the home caught fire and the fire fighters needed to get into the building and quickly as possible to get people out of the building having the doors and windows locked is going to waste time, this also could cause injury. Security Systems; In a residential home there would have to be CCTV around the outside of all doors and so you can see all windows, so you can keep an eye out for anyone trying to get in or out of the establishment. This is important because in a residential home you wouldn’t want people waltzing in and out. If there was an incident we would need to know who was in the building and who wasn’t this is why visitors have to sign in and out. If someone got in and possessions went missing we could narrow it down with the cameras but if we didn’t have cameras it would be hard to find out who did it, this could lead to loss or damage to the premises or personal belongings. Part 2 In this section I am going to give examples of the hazards that can arise in different settings. Residential Home; Elderly If a fire occurred in a residential home they would need to make sure that everyone inside the building got out safe so there would need to be fire exits, safety precautions and when they got everybody out safe they do a count of how many people were inside the building and how many are outside now. In a residential home it is important that the staff take health and safety procedures correctly and appropriately, within the care setting they need to be able to escape from the building in case of a fire, also to make  sure they don’t put each other in danger. So if a fire exit was blocked this could cause a hazard. Child minding; Young Children In a nursery a child minder is only allowed a certain amount of children at a time with them, due to having too many and not abiding to the ratio, if the child minder got distracted with one of the other children and another child had accidently swallowed an object this could cause the child to choke on the object they would have to try and get the object out of the young child’s mouth if this fails to work they would have to ring a ambulance , if the child minder had all the children in sight where she could see all of them this incident would have occurred. This could link to expose to danger. Public environment; Beach younger children If a children’s care home had organized a day at the beach for the children, the care workers would have to make sure that they had put sun cream on all of the children because if they just left them and some of the children got burnt this would be abuse towards the children. If the children wanted to go into the sea, a member of staff would have to go in with them to supervise them to make sure they wasn’t in danger or drowning or the current taking them out to sea. So if they had planned to take them out they would have to make sure there is enough staff to watch the children. Third Receiving Care For those that receive care a hazard for an elderly person could be that they cannot see very well so, loss of vision and slower reactions could be a problem if they was trying to find their way down to the dining area this would be a problem because they wouldn’t be able to see where there was going, so if things were left like this they could fall over and this would be an injury. If there was a younger person going down to the dining area there could be a sign saying ‘caution wet floor’ they might just ignore it and walk over it anyway and fall and really hurt themselves. This would be  lack of equipment. Workers in a setting Workers in a setting could have to deal with all sorts of patients timid, violent, shy e.c.t. if a resident was violent towards a staff member and hit them there would have to follow certain precautions because this is abuse, for example was the resident provoked to hit the member of staff? Was the resident in distress? Was the member of staff not listening or listening to their needs? There would need to be an investigation throughout the home and everyone will have to create a statement both about the staff and the resident. This would be some working conditions for some employees. Support staff Support staff in a health and social care setting should be given protective clothing because if one of the residents or care staff spills something on them or something gets on their skin that harmful in anyway this would be harmful substances because they were not giving the appropriate protective clothing. Visitors If there is a visitor that wants to come into the resident then there should be a buzzer that they have to press for the staff to identify, also a camera so they can see who it is. If there was not these safety precautions anyone could waltz in and out of the building which is not very professional, if someone did get in or someone got out of the building this would be because of poor security systems. This could result in injury.