Staff Regulation Handbook

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 Table Contents
Introduction and Scope of Application..............................................................................3
Basic Principles, Rights, and Duties.................................................................................3
The Regulatory Framework under Which the Center Operates.......................................3
The Different Laws and Levels of Policy..........................................................................4
Legislation.....................................................................................................................4
Secondary Legislation...................................................................................................4
Statutory Instruments................................................................................................ 4
Statutory Guidance....................................................................................................5
Codes of Practice...................................................................................................... 5
Case Law......................................................................................................................5
Policies......................................................................................................................... 5
National and Organization Polices vs Professional Standards..................................6
Notable Legal Statutes in Action......................................................................................6
Ethical Issues...................................................................................................................7
Ethical Theories and principles.....................................................................................8
Law and ethics Relevance of professional responsibilities..............................................8
Law and Ethics Influence on Different Professions..........................................................9
Conclusion..................................................................................................................... 10
References.....................................................................................................................11

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 Introduction and Scope of Application
The regulations in this handbook shall apply to all individuals employed by the
institution in any capacity that involves delivering health and social care to patients and
other users of our services. The regulation also applies to individuals providing health
and social care services on behalf of the institution, whether on the institution’s
premises or in fieldwork away from the institution. However, the provisions in this
handbook shall not apply to other categories of workers employed by the institution
unless the management determines otherwise.
Basic Principles, Rights, and Duties
The healthcare industry and its players are governed by laws, regulations, rules,
and ethical standards. The laws seek to safeguard people when making healthcare
choices and further stipulate healthcare workers’ duties and responsibilities
(Department of Health & Care, 2022). This Staff Regulatory Handbook is based upon
ethical and legal principles that prescribe the rights of healthcare workers and their
responsibilities to patients and the entire healthcare system.
While the government’s laws define legal standards, ethical principles have no
legal foundation. Legal standards’ significance lies in their prescription of what
healthcare workers are allowed or not to do. At the same time, ethical values are
principally founded on the human doctrines of right and wrong (Barber, 2016, p. 176).
Legal standards are enforceable through statutory institutions, and any act that departs
from the stipulation set by the law is considered illegal. On the other hand, ethical
principles do not have a strict regulation. There are differences in how legal standards
and ethical principles function (Barber, 2016, p. 176). The legal provisions only apply
within the jurisdiction that legislates and implements them. Conversely, ethical values
are voluntary and based on personal discretion, and thus, individuals pursue given
actions based on their own judgment of right and wrong.
The Regulatory Framework under Which the Center Operates
Regulation aims to ensure public safety. It establishes professional standards,
regulates activities, and guarantees patients and service users quality care. Health and
social care workers must attain and maintain the appropriate competency to deliver
service to patients and clients. The performance of healthcare services is directly linked

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to the quality of the workforce, and it is thus essential to ensure that the professionals
command the capacity to deliver optimal services, which is fitness for practice
(Department of Health & Care, 2021, p9). Healthcare institutions must meet specific
standards to deliver quality service. Regulation ensures all institutions meet the
stipulated criterion. Last, regulation helps prevent and solve disputes between
professionals and their patients during service delivery.
The Different Laws and Levels of Policy
Legislation
Legislation or statutes are written laws legally drafted and passed by a legislative
body designed to command or prohibit action. Legislation demands that healthcare
workers perform specific actions in their duty to their patients and prohibits them from
undertaking harmful activities. They are called the Acts of Parliament because the
parliament is the legislative authority that deliberates and passes them
(Legislation.gov.uk, 2020). Legislation starts its life as a bill (a proposal for a new law or
to change an existing one) that goes through three stages: introduction in the House of
Commons/House of Lords for scrutiny and optimisation, presentation to the monarch for
approval (Royal Assent), and then becomes law (UK Parliament, 2020a). Statutes are
mandatory for all citizens and enforceable through sanctions and other approved
penalties.
Secondary Legislation
Secondary legislation is also known as statutory instruments or statutory guidance. It
is created by the government’s ministers through the authority assigned to them by the
Acts of Parliament (UK Parliament, 2020b). Since they are a product of delegated
authority from the parliament, they are considered delegated legislation. Their primary
role is to address gaps in the primary statutes and thus provide executable information
concerning various situations. Examples include statutory instruments and codes of
practice.
Statutory Instruments
Statutory Instruments (SIs) are regulatory documents written by a government
department to effect adjustments to a law. The instruments provide detailed outlines
and reasons for the change (UK Parliament, n.d.). However, action by the parliament

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may be necessary to influence their application. The parliament can approve or reject
these instruments but cannot amend them. SIs are essential when specific actions must
be rapidly authorized and executed.
Statutory Guidance
Statutory guidance is written to provide healthcare workers or organisations with the
information they require to meet the legal obligations stipulated in statutes and
legislation. Healthcare workers and organisations must follow these guidelines unless
they can demonstrate and justify why they cannot do it. Statutory guidance is essential
to give healthcare workers additional contextual details regarding legislation and how to
operate within the prevailing legislative environment. The Care and Support Statutory
Guidance (Department of Health, 2014) is an example of a statutory guidance issue to
provide direction on the application of the Care Act 2014.
Codes of Practice
Codes of practice set out the objective behind the legislation. They draw from the
legislations themselves and judicial interpretation of the statutes through case laws
(Equality and Human Rights Commission, 2011). It proceeds to explain the different
provisions, restrictions, and guarantees of legislation. The elucidation gives healthcare
workers and institutions a practical understanding of the influence of the legislation in
everyday practice. Besides, it supports their comprehension in executing legal
concepts, which is further helpful to the judiciary when deliberating judgment.
Case Law
Case Law is also known as the law of precedent or common law. It is based on
the outcomes from past cases, where judgments made by judges in previous cases are
used to deliberate and pass judgment in current ones. It establishes a principle or rule
on which to base actions and expect courts and judicial bodies to use when deliberating
later cases with similar facts. Using legal precedents creates stability, predictability,
efficiency, and fairness in law. The precedents or stare decisis have three main
elements: reports, rules and classification (Trevelyan, 2020).
Policies
A policy is a principle or course of action embraced by an individual or an
organisation. It stipulates the rules or guidelines that establish the course of action in

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various stipulations (O’Connor, Wilbore, and Grace, 2020, p. 1). Policies occur at
different levels and can be classified based accordingly: National policy and
organisational policy. National policy dictates the particular direction pursued by a
government, while an organisational policy reveals how an institution is aligned with the
national policy. National policies stipulate the government’s stand on a given issue,
align with national legislation, translate visions and aims into outcomes, and inform law
and reform. Organisation policy gives institutions the course of action to pursue in
relation to national legislation and policies.
National and Organization Polices vs Professional Standards
National and organizational policies are closely connected. National policies
inform organization policies, and both seek to regulate the activities of professionals and
uphold their duty to patients. Policies draw from laws and ethics to stipulate the
behaviours and actions of workers (O’Connor, Wilbore, and Grace, 2020, p. 1).
However, while national policies impact is countrywide, impacting a range of institutions
and practices, organizational policies are specific to an organization to meet the unique
services and professionals associated with the institution.
Policies inform professional standards. In particular, national policies provide the
guideline upon which professional standards are built. On the other hand, organization
policies draw from national and professional standards. For instance, policies and
standards are concerned with upholding the integrity of healthcare practice and
safeguarding patients (Barber, 2016, p. 176). Standards provide the necessary course
of action to ensure the practice is in line with the existing policies; thus, as policy
stipulates that professionals safeguard patient safety, standards direct on the nature of
the practice that safeguards patient safety.
Notable Legal Statutes in Action
As a nurse in a care home environment, you must know the statutes governing
your service delivery and duly comply with all provisions. Confidentiality is essential in
healthcare, and care homes must protect their residents’ information (Selling & Quick,
2022, p3). In this regard, care homes must comply with the Data Protection Act of 1998
and the Data Protection Act of 2018 on protecting people’s information; The Human
Rights Act of 1998 on respect for people’s privacy; The Care Act of 2014 for a patient-

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centred approach to safeguard at-risk adults; and The Health and Social Care (Safety
and Quality) Act 2015 for appropriate handling and transmitting of patient information
(Hendy, 2023). As nurses and caregivers working in a care home environment, you
must take the lead in protecting the residents’ privacy.
A caregiver has unique responsibilities towards the residents in care homes. The
Health and Social Care Act of 2008 elaborately stipulates the roles and responsibilities
of caregivers in care homes. They must ensure that they provide appropriate treatment
that meets the needs and personal preferences of the recipient (CQC, 2023). The
provider cannot offer care against the recipients’ consent, irrespective of whether the
care meets the patient’s needs. In situations where a recipient lacks the mental capacity
to make critical decisions, the care provider must act according to the Mental Health Act
1983 and Mental Capacity Act 2005.
In instances that involve partnerships or multidisciplinary teams, sharing of
information is critical. However, the information exchange must be done in a way that
protects the patient’s privacy based on the Data Protection Act of 1998 and The Health
and Social Care (Safety and Quality) Act of 2015 (Selling & Quick, 2022, p4). Only
relevant members of the teams should have access to this information.
Ethical Issues
Ethics embody the concept of good and right. Good denotes what one should
aim to achieve, while right embodies a juridical framework by which we justify action.
Ethical issues are moral dilemmas that one must consider by acting or deciding.
Healthcare workers must embrace the ethical principles in practice (Amer, 2019a, p
183). The four principles are autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) Code can provide a reliable guide and
is thus a “code of ethics,” a set of critical principles to support and direct nurses (NMC
2015, p. 2). A code of ethics outlines the essential ethical doctrines that govern our
practice’s decision-making. Situations that lead to ethical dilemmas include respecting
others, treating others fairly and with dignity, and supporting patients’ choices (Dam,
2019). These situations lead to ethical issues such as confidentiality, consent,
relationship, safeguarding, and end-of-life, which also have legal implications.

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 Ethics and law are intricately intertwined. Ethics embody philosophical tests for
morality and concepts of good and evil, right and wrong, which inform socially
acceptable behaviours (Jackson, 2015, p. 95). Law entails a system of rules enforced
by a set of institutions.
Law and ethics are connected through standards, behaviours, and rules.
Standards concern the quality level expected from healthcare workers or institutions.
Both law and ethics seek to stipulate the quality of healthcare services that consumers
are entitled to. Behaviours embody healthcare workers’ comportment and actions
toward their profession, patients, and organisation. Law and ethics stipulate suitable
and unsuitable behaviour (Jackson, 2015, p. 96). Law goes ahead to sanction and
prohibit certain behaviours. Rules are sets of principles that guide or control actions and
comportments. They demarcate right and wrong and serve as societal norms. Social
rules provide ethics and define ethical practice and can become law when formalised.
When incorporated into law, they become binding for everyone.
Ethical Theories and principles
Healthcare workers must be conversant with ethical theories stipulating how to
approach different situations. The four ethical theories present four ways of approaching
ethical scenarios (Amer, 2019b, 189). The theories include consequentialism,
deontology, virtue ethics, and principles.
The ethical theories applicability to law demonstrates statutes’ dependency on
ethics. From a consequentialist perspective, laws such as the Care Act 2014 aim to
reduce harm and increase gains. In application De-ontological and princpalism
application, laws must follow the specific principle and emphasise duty, such as duty of
care. From a virtue perspective, laws such as the Mental Capacity Act 2005 enormously
influence our conduct towards art-risk clients. The ethical principles to consider include
autonomy, beneficence (do good) non-maleficence (do no harm) and justice (Haddad &
Geiger, 2023).
Law and ethics Relevance of professional responsibilities
Ethics and law wield enormous influence on our professional responsibilities as
healthcare practitioners. Ethics and law are the guiding compass influencing our actions
or non-actions during healthcare delivery. First, the law stipulates what we must or must

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not do, while ethics guides our valuation of action as good, right and desirable, or bad,
wrong and thus undesirable(Jackson, 2015, p. 96). By demarcating action and not
action, they both guide and shape our conduct as healthcare workers. Second, law and
ethics provide the standard that we must meet in the delivery of our practice.
Professional standards are the competencies necessary for individuals in our practice to
be fit for practice. The standards supplicate the legally acceptable quality or level of
service, ethically allowing us to be compassionate toward the patient’s needs. For
instance, standards define nutrition levels, cleanliness, assessments, and turnaround of
activities. Finally, law and ethics inform the application of the rules to our practice. Rules
are the principles that govern our condition and actions and considerably enable us to
distinguish between right and wrong (O’Connor, Wilbore, and Grace, 2020, p. 1). The
principles stipulate how we uphold right actions and respond to unjust actions. For
instance, we ought to raise concerns about inappropriate treatment or patient harm.
Ethically, raising concern is morally right, while legally, raising concern is our duty.
Law and Ethics Influence on Different Professions
Healthcare tasks undertaken by the profession must meet national and
professional standards. The task must stay within the legal framework. For instance,
nurses communicate and assess patients frequently. When communicating with
patients, nurses must ensure the patients are in an appropriate mental state to
understand and participate in the communication. They must further ensure privacy by
not disclosing what the patients reveal to them (Selling & Quick, 2022, p3). Second,
when conducting assessments, nurses must respect the patients’ rights and autonomy.
The assessment must not violate the patient’s rights and must only be performed with
the patient’s consent. Doctors also experience similar challenges as nurses. For
instance, they perform examinations or recommend tests and prescribe treatment for
the patient. When performing examinations or recommending laboratory tests, doctors
must inform the patients what is involved in the tests and only perform them when they
agree. For instance, invasive tests can only be done on willing patients (CQC, 2023).
Second, when prescribing treatment to patients, doctors may discuss available options
with the patients to ensure patients make informed choices before they settle on a
particular regimen or therapy.

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 Conclusion
Law and ethics influence and shape healthcare and the activities of practitioners
in their daily delivery of services to patients. They stipulate the responsibilities and
duties the caregivers have toward patients. As a result, the ethics and law safeguard the
wellbeing of patients and other healthcare service users. Our institution’s policy is to
provide our clients with high-quality healthcare services. We uphold the patients’ right to
quality healthcare and protect our patient rights. To achieve this objective, our
organisational policy is to adhere to the provision of all laws and ethical values, national
policies, and professional standards.

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 References
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British Journal of Healthcare Assistants, 10(4), 176–179.
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