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  5. Care Certificate Standard 1 Answers: Understand Your Role

Care Certificate Standard 1 Answers: Understand Your Role

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Standard 1 of the Care Certificate involves knowing and understanding your role as a social care worker.

This includes understanding your rights and responsibilities as an employee, keeping up to date with standards and legislation, confidentiality, professional boundaries, agreed ways of working and much more.

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The information on this page has been updated and quality assured for 2023.

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Learning Outcomes & Assessment Criteria

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Care Certificate Standard 1 Workbook Answers

Here, you will find exemplary answers for all the questions in the workbook for Standard 1 of The Care Certificate – Understand Your Role.

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The blank workbook for standard 1 can be downloaded from the Skills for Care website (PDF format)

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Accompanying Video

Activity 1.1a

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Using your job description to help you, fill in the box below to describe your main duties and responsibilities.

My main duties and responsibilities are to provide care and support to the individuals I support in line with their individualised, person-centred care plan.

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This includes helping them to manage their finances, administering medication, assisting with personal care, meal planning and preparation and supporting them to access activities that they want to participate in and maintain relationships with the people that are important to them.

My work encompasses best practices and person-centred values such as choice, privacy, respect, dignity and independence.

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I must adhere to my company’s agreed ways of working, take ownership of my own personal development and minimise legal risks, for example by reporting errors or potential hazards to health and safety. I must also keep accurate and up-to-date records.

In addition, I must be a strong communicator as I need to be able to converse clearly with individuals that have diverse communication needs as well as my colleagues and outside agencies. I also need to be aware of confidentiality and not share the private data of the individuals I support without their consent (unless there are exceptional circumstances).

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Activity 1.1b

Look up the Care Certificate and the Code of Conduct for Healthcare Support Workers and Adult Social Care Workers in England. Complete the diagram below to list some examples of the standards they include.

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The Care Certificate Standards (https://www.skillsforcare.org.uk/Learning-development/inducting-staff/care-certificate/Care-Certificate.aspx)

  1. Understand your role
  2. Your personal development
  3. Duty of care
  4. Equality and diversity
  5. Work in a person centred way
  6. Communication
  7. Privacy and dignity
  8. Fluids and nutrition
  9. Awareness of mental health, dementia and learning disabilities
  10. Safeguarding adults
  11. Safeguarding children
  12. Basic life support
  13. Health and safety
  14. Handling information
  15. Infection prevention and control
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Code of Conduct for Healthcare Support Workers and Adult Social Care Workers in England (https://www.skillsforcare.org.uk/Documents/Standards-legislation/Code-of-Conduct/Code-of-Conduct.pdf)

As a Healthcare Support Worker or Adult Social Care Worker in England you must:

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  1. Be accountable by making sure you can answer for your actions or omissions.

  2. Promote and uphold the privacy, dignity, rights, health and wellbeing of people who use health and care services and their carers at all times.

  3. Work in collaboration with your colleagues to ensure the delivery of high quality, safe and compassionate healthcare, care and support.

  4. Communicate in an open, and effective way to promote the health, safety and wellbeing of people who use health and care services and their carers.

  5. Respect a person’s right to confidentiality.

  6. Strive to improve the quality of healthcare, care and support through continuing professional development.

  7. Uphold and promote equality, diversity and inclusion.

Activity 1.1d

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Being self-aware is important for care workers. Think about your previous experiences and the attitudes and beliefs you have, and under the points below explain how they may have affected the way you work.

A positive experience

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As a child, I was always given a lot of praise and encouragement and I feel this has given me the confidence and tenacity to overcome barriers and achieve the things that I wanted to in life. Therefore, I believe that positive reinforcement is essential to supporting individuals to reach their maximum potential and use the same techniques in my daily practice.

A negative experience, and the steps that were taken to ensure it didn’t affect your work

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To facilitate the needs of a particular individual, I was included in a shift pattern of wake nights that began at 10pm and ended at 8am. Unfortunately, this had a negative impact on both my work and personal life because I was unable to catch up on my sleep by sleeping in the daytime (my body just wouldn’t sleep during daylight hours). I became constantly fatigued, irritable and prone to mistakes. I also began to feel stressed and depressed.

I spoke about this with my manager and we decided that it was no longer viable for me to continue doing wake night shifts. When I returned to day shifts and sleeping night shifts my efficiency and wellbeing improved.

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Your positive attitude

I always come to work with a positive attitude and have a strong belief that there is always an underlying reason for every inappropriate or challenging behaviour. I particularly enjoy analysing and determining the cause of behaviours and devising solutions to them. By being positive about the problems I face, I have the motivation and drive to resolve them with long-term proactive strategies rather than short-term reactionary tactics that ignore the underlying issue.

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Your personal beliefs

I am a vegetarian and believe that animals should not be slaughtered for meat, however I respect the choice of the individuals I support to eat meat and do not force my personal beliefs onto them. I do not let this affect my job role and will positively support individuals to buy, prepare and cook meat if that is their wish. If I felt so strongly that I was unable to support individuals with their personal dietary preferences then I would not be able to perform my job function correctly.

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Activity 1.2a

Familiarise yourself with your employment rights and responsibilities. Under each of the headings below, describe your rights and responsibilities as a worker.

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Health and safety

It is my responsibility to ensure the health, safety and wellbeing of myself and others (clients, colleagues, outside agencies and members of the public) in my workplace by identifying and removing potential hazards (if I can) and reporting them to my manager. I must abide by my company’s agreed ways of working, which includes policies and procedures, care plans and risk assessments.

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My rights as an employee are that my employer will minimise risks to myself and others and action any potential hazards reported to them swiftly. They will ensure I have the correct training and equipment to do my job correctly.

Confidentiality

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It is my responsibility to ensure that I only share personal information that I am privy to on a need-to-know basis and (ideally) with consent. Sometimes I may need to share information without consent, for example, if I have suspicions that abuse may have occurred or there is a risk of harm or injury.

I can expect my employer to ensure that personal information about myself is stored securely by my employer and only shared on a need-to-know basis.

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Personal information should be stored securely so that it can only be accessed by authorised persons. For example, paper records should be stored in locked filing cabinets and digital records should be password-protected.

Working time

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I am contracted to work an average of 37 hours per week, however, the actual hours may vary from week to week. I have not opted out of the Working Time Directive so must not work more than 48 hours per week. If I wanted to work more than 48 hours per week, I would have to give written consent to my employer – this must be voluntary and I can not be treated unfairly for refusing.

I am entitled to the following rest breaks:

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  • Weekly rest break of at least 24 uninterrupted hours every 7 days
  • Daily rest break of 11 hours in every 24 hours
  • A 20 minute rest break each day if I work over 6 hours

I am entitled to 5.6 weeks paid annual leave.

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Pay and wages

I am entitled to be paid at least £9.50 per hour (National Living Wage), however I actually get paid £10.20 per hour. In April 2023, the minimum wage will increase to £10.42 per hour. Younger workers (under 25) can be paid less.

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Activity 1.2b

Speak to your employer to find out the aims, objectives and values of the organisation that you work in and use the information to fill in the table below.

The aims of my organisation

  • To provide a high-quality level of care for all clients based on person-centred planning and values.
  • To exceed any minimum standards and achieve high levels of consumer satisfaction and care.
  • To provide excellent and ethical management practices in our services, thus building open, respectful, trustworthy and honest relationships with our service users and purchaser, associates and professionals within the field.
  • To offer all staff high-quality training on an on-going basis to ensure occupational and personal development, thus achieving staff satisfaction, retention and growth in their capacity to provide quality care. We want our staff to enjoy and share in the beliefs and success of the company.
  • To grow our business on a sound financial footing and expand as demand increases.

The objectives of my organisation

  • To meet the assessed needs of each user, based on systematic and ongoing person-centred planning of care for each user, made in conjunction with the service user, the service purchaser, their families (where applicable), care managers and other health care professionals.
  • To promote the independence and quality of life of service users by providing professional, reliable and consistent care services.
  • To ensure that the service is delivered flexibly and in a non-discriminatory fashion.
  • Respecting each individual’s right to independence, privacy, dignity, fulfilment, and their right to make informed choices based on risk assessments.
  • To ensure that individual’s needs and values are respected in matters of religion, culture, race or ethnic origin, sexuality and sexual orientation, political affiliation, marital status, parenthood and disabilities or impairments.
  • To ensure that the care service, in whole, is delivered in accordance with agreed purchasing contracts or individual “Person Centred” care agreements.
  • To manage and implement a formal programme of staff planning, selection, recruitment, training, retention and personal development to enable the care needs of individuals to be met and in line with industry “Best Practice”, issued guidance and At Home – Specialists in Cares’ business philosophy.
  • To manage the care service efficiently and effectively to make best use of resources and to maximise value for money for users of our services.
  • To match the nominated care / support worker as closely as possible with the service user and to respect the need to change the care / support worker in the event of subsequent incompatibility.
  • To undertake a risk assessment of environmental and ergonomic health & safety hazards within the home of each new service user, and to ensure that areas of concern are duly reported to the purchaser/ user. Such risk assessments will take into account the right of the user to take risks.
  • To ensure that all service users receive written information on the organisation’s policy and procedure for handling complaints, comments and compliments, and how to use them.
  • To expand our company in a manner that reflects local service users’ needs and is financially responsible.

The values of my organisation

  • Integrity
  • Trust
  • Empowerment
  • Respect
  • Care

Activity 1.2c

It is essential to work in ways that are agreed with your employer. Give an example of an agreed way of working in your workplace and explain why it is important.

One of my company’s agreed ways of working is the Whistleblowing Policy and Procedure, which details how employees can report and escalate genuine unsafe practices without fear of reprisals.

It is important because it is a legal requirement for all organisations governed by CQC to have a whistleblowing policy and ensures that employees can safely report their concerns without having to worry that they will be treated unfairly for doing so. By having a whistleblowing policy, employees are more likely to come forward with their concerns and unsafe practices, abuse, neglect and bullying can be investigated and actioned swiftly.

Activity 1.2e and 1.2f

Part i) For each of the statements below, decide whether each should be reported as a concern and tick either yes or no.

  • The health and safety of staff is in danger – YES, all risks to health and safety should be reported immediately
  • Individuals are treated with dignity and respect – NO, this should be a common aspect of the workplace culture and does not need to be reported
  • The environment is being damaged by work activity – YES, all employees have a responsibility to maintain their work environment and report any damages. Businesses have an ethical and legal responsibility to ensure their impact on the environment is minimised.
  • Wrongdoing is being covered up – YES, care sector employees must behave with honesty and integrity and own up when mistakes are made. Covering up mistakes reduces the quality of care and encourages bad malpractice.
  • The individual’s care is inadequate but they cannot or will not complain – YES, if an individual is unable to complain for themselves, care workers may need to speak up for them.
  • Care plans are reassessed and updated regularly – NO, care plans should be reviewed and updated regularly so this does not need to be reported.
  • Your manager is involved in the abuse of individuals – YES, all abuse should be reported immediately. If the manager is implicit in the abuse then it must be reported to somebody else in line with organisation’s safeguarding policy.

Part ii) Thinking about the statements in Part i) that would need to be reported, explain how you would raise your concerns, or whistleblow and why.

If I have a health and safety concern, first of all I would assess if it is something I can resolve myself, and if I could resolve it safely I would do so. Whether I could resolve it or not, I would still report it to my manager verbally. If my manager did not treat my concern seriously, I would escalate it to our Health and Safety Manager.

If the environment is being damaged by work activities, again, I would report it to my manager along with possible solutions to the problem. It may also be necessary for me to report this (whistleblow) to the environmental health department of the local authority if my concerns are not actioned by my manager.

If wrongdoing is being covered up, I would immediately report this to my manager and escalate it to senior management if my manager did not deal with the issue swiftly. If it still were not being dealt with, I would report to CQC, in line with my organisation’s Whistleblowing Policy.

If an individual’s care is insufficient and they cannot or will not complain, it would be reported to my manager and then escalated to my company’s safeguarding lead. If it needed to be escalated further, I would go to local social services safeguarding and/or CQC. I would also consider encouraging and supporting the individual to make a complaint through my organisation’s complaints policy.

If my manager was involved in the abuse of individuals then I would immediately report this to our safeguarding lead, followed by social services safeguarding, CQC and/or the police depending on the severity of the case.

Activity 1.3a

Think about your responsibilities to the individuals you support. Describe four of your responsibilities to those individuals:

  1. To ensure all individuals that I care for are protected from abuse and neglect.
  2. To promote the rights, independence and well-being of the individuals I support.
  3. To ensure I support individuals in line with their needs, wishes and preferences set out in their personalised care plan.
  4. To treat all individuals fairly and offer them the same opportunities whilst valuing and appreciating their diversity.

Activity 1.3b

In the boxes below, explain how a working relationship is different to a personal relationship. Use examples from your service to help you explain your points:

A working relationship is…

…a professional relationship that is created and maintained in the workplace, adheres to agreed ways of working and is compensated for with salary. Personal matters are not discussed, and confidentiality must be maintained. Governed by legislation, best practices and industry standards.

Examples include…

…relationships between co-workers, managers and their team members, care workers and the individuals they support, care workers and other professionals such as social workers, GPs, nurses, advocates etc.

A personal relationship is…

…a mutual relationship between friends and family that socialise together and can discuss personal matters. It is not regulated, and there are no rules, policies or procedures to follow.

Examples include…

….partners, friends, siblings, parent/children, family friends, neighbours etc.

Activity 1.3c

There are four main working relationships in health and social care. State the four main working relationships and provide a description of each, including who they are most likely to be in your own workplace:

  1. Care workers and clients – These are the individuals to whom I provide care services and may also include their significant others (e.g. their parents, siblings etc.). It is important to remember that the individuals I support are not my friends and that professional boundaries exist.
  2. Care workers and other care workers –  These are the colleagues I work with daily as part of a team.
  3. Manager and team members – This is the relationship I have with my manager. It is my manager’s job to lead my team and collaborate with me on my personal development through appraisals, supervision, observations etc.
  4. Care workers and other professionals – These are relationships with outside agencies that provide services in partnership with us, such as social workers, advocates, dietitians, psychologists, GPs and nurses.

Activity 1.4a and 1.4b

As a worker in health and social care it is essential to be an effective and good team member and work in partnership. Explain why it is important to work:

a) In partnership with other workers

Working well with my colleagues means that the individuals we support receive consistent care, and the team has high morale and positive attitude towards the services we provide. This extends to other teams within my organisation as well as outside agencies. When we work together, we can achieve the best possible outcomes for the individuals we support. Sometimes, we may disagree, but we value every person’s contribution and may have to negotiate or compromise.

b) In partnership with key people, advocates, and others who are significant to the individual such as their carer, family members or friends:

It is important that I work well with others that are stakeholders in an individual’s care, such as advocates and their family and friends because they are often the only way that an individual can communicate their needs and wishes and can be a great source of information about what we are doing well and what we could improve, which all contribute to the individual’s wellbeing.

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