Question

Case study

Liam is the facility manager at a residential aged care facility. The service provides independent living units, community nursing and home care packages, day centre visits, respite care, palliative care, and dementia specific care, to older people. Liam is responsible for managing legal and ethical compliance within the organisation, ensuring the facility’s AHPRA registration and accreditation are up to date, and maintaining collaborative and effective relationships with all multidisciplinary team members. Lucy, a casual nurse, comes to work with symptoms of gastroenteritis. She knows that she should have stayed home but she knew the service was going to be short staffed. After carrying out her duties for three hours, Lucy talks to her manager, Janice, in the tea room. She explains her symptoms and that she is feeling weak and unsteady. Janice tells her to go home immediately as gastroenteritis is highly contagious and could pose a severe health risk to residents and other staff members. That evening, four residents develop gastroenteritis. Liam has left work for the day but receives a phone call from the night nursing unit manager alerting him to the spread of virus (herein called ‘the incident’). Liam responds immediately by ordering the service into lock down. One of the residents who contracted the virus is taken to hospital for treatment and is in a critical condition. Liam organises refresher training for all staff with regard to duty of care. Liam receives an incident report form from Janice regarding Lucy’s illness. He thinks that because of Lucy’s failure to comply with organisational work health and safety procedures relating to infection control, the organisation has breached its duty of care to provide residents with a safe and healthy care environment.

QUESTION-

1. List and describe two information sources that Liam could regularly access for more information about his organisation’s legal and ethical compliance requirements regarding infection control.

2.How could Liam determine the organisation’s scope of compliance requirements relating to the health and safety of workers and people receiving support services?

Answer 1

Ans) 1) Legal obligations include duty of care and adhering to the laws and regulations that govern your area of practice. Ethical obligations include ensuring you understand and apply the ethical codes and practice standards that apply to community services work.

- Regularly check sites for updated standards.
Join industry associations.
Attend trainings, conferences, and seminars.
Designate a compliance officer.
Use software solutions.
Subscribe to newsletters.

Manage legal and ethical compliance:

Release describes the skills and knowledge required to research information about compliance and ethical practice responsibilities, and then develop and monitor policies and procedures to meet those responsibilities.

Infection Prevention and Control Guidelines:
- Hand Hygiene.

- Environmental Cleaning/Disinfection.

- Isolation Precautions.

- Injection Safety.

- Hand Hygiene.

- Environmental Cleaning/Disinfection.

- Isolation Precautions.

- Injection Safety.

- Antimicrobial Stewardship.

- Healthcare Personnel.

- Multidrug-Resistant Organisms (MDRO)

2) Compliance is the act of following the rules. While these rules are often external requirements, compliance also involves following your organisation’s internal rules, policies and procedures, and acting in accordance with ethical practices. Compliance management refers to the way in which your organisation assures compliance in accordance with the rules, regulations, laws and other requirements to which your organisation is
subject.
- The community trusts and expects service providers to uphold and apply proper legal and ethical standards that underpin their work. As a manager, you have a great deal of responsibility and must always act in a professional, competent and ethical manner. To do this, you need to be familiar with all laws, rules, standards and regulations relevant to your community services organisation. These protect the rights of both people in need of support, and your team members, and also ensure high-quality
and safe services are provided.