Health and social care setting Essay

My health and social care setting is an under 5’s nursery, within my setting there may be many incidents or emergencies. There could be incidents within my setting such as bumping their heads, falling over, tripping over toys. An emergency within my setting could be things such as fire’s or severe injuries such as being knocked unconscious. In this assignment I will cover two incidents or emergencies, the ones I will be covering are actual and suspected abuse and exposure to infection, I will start of with my P4; explaining possible priorities and responses when dealing with these incidents, I will then go onto D2; justifying why I am making those responses, finally I will go onto my M3;; where I will discuss the health, safety and security of individuals within my setting when the incident or emergency occurs. In a case of actual abuse your priority is the children, you should make sure there is trusted members of staff to listen to them at all times and take what they are saying seriously, it is vital that staff do not just brush it off as a silly comment or something they’ve â€Å"heard on TV†, they should do this because although they may be unsure about what the child is telling them, it is most likely true, children of this age do not fabricate things such as this, they should not just shrug it off and take any notice because they have to relay as much detail to their supervisor as possible.In the case of a child expressing to an adult about abuse, they should listen carefully, don’t walk away from the child or disrupt them whilst they are telling you, you should feel privileged as a child confiding in you about their abuse must mean they trust you, they should not do this because it will make the child feel although they are completely alone and isolated and alth ough they are not being heard, they will lose the trust they had in them.Whilst the child is confiding in you you should make sure you try to maintain professionalism, you should do this because if you start to get  personally involved and staff see you are getting personally involved, it may be hard for them to 100% trust everything you are relaying to them! it may be hard for the child to also understand what is acceptable within your relationship. Listen carefully to them, try get them to sit with you in a quiet environment, you should do this because there is less distraction for the child, meaning they wont just run off and play, it is also easier for you to hear everything the child is saying to you in depth, this also protects the child’s dignity and stops other children hearing what they are saying, or other children trying to grab your attention away from the situation. Don’t not be afraid of awkward silences either and definitely don’t try to fill them, you shouldn’t do this because it can be seen as your trying to push the child for answers, which should never be done. You shouldn’t really ask the children questions, the reason you should not do this is people can assume you are trying to put things in their heads or pushing them for answers they don’t feel comfortable giving, it’s also vital you don’t ask them questions as different people are going to be doing a lot of that. Try to sit at the children’s level and try to maintain eye contact with them, be aware of your body language. You should be aware of this because if you are too close to them or try to touch their hands to comfort them, this may make them shut down due to the abuse they are experiencing, being touched is uncomfortable to them. Once the child has expressed to you the abuse they are experiencing you should tell your line manager, if the child asks you to promise not to tell anyone, which they probably will you have to maintain your professional head and tell them you cannot promise this. You should never make promises to them, especially things such as â€Å"don’t worry we will sort this out, things will be better†, you should never do this because you should never make a promise to a child you cannot keep, you can say reassuring things like â€Å"I promise it is not your fault† but you cannot promise things like not telling anyone, as this is dishonest, you will have to relay what the child has said to the staff and the child will end up shutting of from you and not confiding any other information to you. In a case of suspected abuse your priority should be making sure that if you  have any suspicions you should report them and follow them through, you should do this because even if you are unsure whether they are ex piercing a use, you should not just let it slide as you may be covering up abuse if you do. if you look on the accidental and non accidental bruising chart and you think you see bruises where it states on the non accidental chart but the parents have not mentioned it, you should report it, don’t just brush it off because you are embarrassed that you may be wrong, you should do this because even if you are wrong, you have done your job in the well being of the child within you’re care. If you are suspicious of a child’s behaviour, if they are awkward when it comes to a certain sex, show sexual advances I.e. Pull their underwear down continuously even after being told it’s wrong or isolate themselves when playing you should report your suspicions. It is vital that if a child’s under 16 and you have even a slight suspicion they are beings abused, you should report it immediately. You should voice your concerns to the child protection appointed officer, who can then deal with the concerns, you should report it to them straight away as they are the best person to report it. This is a delicate incident, if a child reports abuse to you, their safety could be at risk, especially if the abuser finds out the child has confided in someone about the abuse, they could hurt them further physically and remove the child from the care of the nursery. The child’s safety could be at severe harm if they were to do this, as although it has been reported the child is not in a safe environment during the day any longer, potentially being subject to more abuse. If the abuse is suspected, reported and found to be irrelevant, the parents may find it uncomfortable to send their child back to the nursery, thinking they have been â€Å"accused† of abuse. The child may not want to come back or may show bad behaviour towards the nursery assistants as the child does not understand why they had to go through they ordeal. P4;explain possible priorities and responses when dealing with two particular incidents or emergencies in a health or social care setting & M2; discuss, health, safety or security concerns arising from a specific incident or emergency in a health and social care setting&D2;Justify responses to a particular incident or emergency in a health or social care setting. In my setting, exposure to infection is high, children are always picking up bugs, colds etc. they also sometimes have accidents, this means the staff are exposed to bodily fluids. You should always protect yourself and those around you from infections. Infections are able to enter the, tyo body in several different ways, these are inhalation- breathing in, ingestion- swallowing and inoculation-a break in the skin. When working in my setting, it is vital to have strict hygiene standards. When dealing with changing children’s nappies, staff should wash their hands thoroughly with soap and warm water, then apply gloves and proceed to change them or help the children with the toilet, they should do this when dealing with accidents also, they should wash their hands before they apply gloves because if they have any germs already on their hands, putting the gloves on will only make them multiply, this is why they should also wash them afterwards also although they are using gloves which stop the body fluids getting onto their hands they could have missed germs the first time washing them. Staff should thoroughly clean cutlery used and when severing food,make sure they have again washed their hands and applied gloves, staff should do this because if a child has a cold or infection of any kind, if their cups they’ve used have not been washed thoroughly, germs could easily be missed and handed to another child with a low immune system which could multiply in no time. They should make sure when they are serving food they wash their hands and put gloves on again, because of germs multiplying and if they have a cut using a blue wash-proof plaster they should do this because it is easy to spot within food and is wash-proof, so it will not come unstuck easily when in contact with water, it will also be noticeable if it becomes loose or falls of within food, as it is blue if it does fall off within food, the food should be correctly disposed of, they should do this because the food is then classed as contaminated and no good. They should make sure that the children always thoroughly wash and dry their hands after using the bathroom as this can pass on infection quickly, they should make sure of this as if the children do not wash their hands then go and play, they are transferring the germs from their body fluids to other children and other toys, they could touch another child and easily pass it on, they could even give themselves more germs by putting their hands in  their mouthes etc. When the children have snack time it is vital that they wash their hands, or use hand sanitiser before and after eating, they should do this because before they eat they could have lots of germs on their hands from picking up toys etc. they want to ensure they are eradicating as many germs as possible, they should also wash their hands afterwards as they have touched food and probably touched the table etc, they could have sneezed and things such as this. They should encourage children to sneeze into tissues or their elb ow and make sure when they have sneezed or blown their nose, they dispose of the tissue correctly and wash their hands afterwards, they should do this because this will minimise the spread of they infection via inhalation, I.e. Air born infections and it will minimise the amount of germs they transfer from toy to toy, then toy to child. They should also clean tables before they use them for snack time, I feel they should do this because if a child has sneezed coughed or put their fingers I n their mouths and run their hands all over the table, their germs will be all over them, the tables will also have had toys all over them which most under 5 year olds would have put in their mouthes, so theoretically the tables should be disinfected, as should the toys, the toys should be disinfected because if a child has touched them or put them in their mouthes with infection, the chance of the germs spreading to all the other toys when they are crammed into a box in a dark cold cupboard is hi gh. Children within the nursery could be at great risk of catching infections from one another, they frequently sneeze and do not cover their mouth’s and nose’s, sneezing onto toys and in the air meaning children can catch they infection they may have by simply breathing around them. One typical thing children do with toys is put them in their mouthes, if another child has previously sneezed on this or put it in their mouth whilst they have an infection, this is automatically spread from one to the next. If the child has an infection such as conjunctivitis and is in nursery without undergoing treatment this could be spread via the child touching and itching their eyes, then touching toys or other children. If a child has an infection such as impetigo, they would only have to have skin to skin contact with someone who has a cut on their skin, this will pass it onto them,these two examples although seem small, are high risk infections. Within my setting the health  of indiv iduals is at risk here, because people’s immune systems react differently to infections, so an infection such as a minor flu that has not affected someone too severely, may affect someone else quite severely, resulting in hospitalisation etc. this type of infection could result in their being an epidemic of flu within the nursery, resulting in everyone become infected unable to attended nursery/work. For example, if a child or worker has asthma or a form of lung disease such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease also known as COPD (this could be in a worker) then what we see as a simple bout of flu or a nasty cold, could cause these individuals more serious illness’ such as a chest infection, it could also cause irreversible damage to their lungs.