Health Service Assistants Duty of Care - Essay Example

"Health Service Assistants Duty of Care" is a brilliant example of a paper on care. Generally, the term ‘Duty of Care’ is employed in legal contexts, as people are well aware of their duties in regard to occupational health and safety. Nevertheless, the term is used in various contexts and can be employed to state an obligation that a wise man would have in situations when working for others. If the functions performed in the duty of care are lacking in care, precaution, and wisdom, it will be taken as lacking in the performance of duty (Australian Government, 2010).

Nursing Specific definition

“Assistant in Nursing” (AIN) are health care providers who help health care professionals in the delivery of nursing care to patients in acute care environments (NSW Health, 2010). The preferable fields for AINs are divided into three stages, as given below:

Role of AIN

Otherwise, in the context of health services assistants, assistant in nursing is one of the categories of the nursing occupation. An assistant in nursing (AIN) is a member of the nursing workforce, doing job duty under the control of a Registered Nurse helping in the execution of nursing duties. The role is the same but there could be various similar titles to the job of AIN), such as Assistant in Nursing (A.I.N), Aged Care Worker (ACW), Personal Care Assistant (PCA), Care Support Employee (CSE), and Health Services Assistance (HSA) (Nurse in Australia, 2012).

Duties of AIN

Normally, the duties of AIN depend on the department, such as helping with patient care and routine functions, attending to patient’s individual cleanliness needs like showering & toileting, restocking & taking care of the equipment & assisting patients in mobility (Nurse in Australia, 2012).

AIN’s operate under the control of an RN or EN and pursue a career for a Certificate IV Aged Care Certification, become an Enrolled Nurse, or doing higher studies to reach the level of a Registered Nurse (Nurse in Australia, 2012).

Qualifications required to become AIN include either:

• TAFE qualifications as an Assistant in Nursing Certificate III Acute Care
• Certificate III in Aged Care, or
• Proof of recent studies for EN/RN qualifications

A Certificate III course normally takes over 5 months full-time or 11 months part-time (Nurse in Australia, 2012).

Rights of AIN

AS per the contract of employment, it is the rights of AINs under NHS to know the terms and conditions of employment, to be received within two months of beginning the job. Information includes details of the salary paid, holiday entitlement, and likewise (Unison, 2003).

Other documents that the AIN has the right to be made available include disciplinary procedure, employment details, clinical code of conduct and standards, job rules on all matters, the statutory conditions applicable on all agreements (e.g., health and safety legislation, equal pay rights, anti-discrimination legislation, unfair dismissal and redundancy rights, the right to whistle-blow) (Unison, 2003).

Nature of AIN Duties

AINs duties are “implied duties”, as these are not written in the contract. They are important for comprehending how, when, and why unsafe instructions or situations can be questioned.

They include a duty to their employer to work as per legal stipulations, co-operate with their employer, serve the employer sincerely and earnestly, use skill and caution in the delivery of duty (Unison, 2003).

Employers are also obliged to their employees to pay settled wages for functions done or which the employee is willing to do, take desired care for the safety of the employee, as given in health and safety legislation, offer a safe job environment, and take enough measures to for the security of the employee, behave nicely with the employee, respect the work contract to create goodwill, not harass the employee psychologically by burdening with extra work or sexually or through the kind of work and not practice racial discrimination (Unison, 2003).

These are unwritten duties as per the contract of employment and are in addition to the statutory and other rights emerging from the written contract (Unison, 2003).

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