PHP20 Work in partnership with others to identify how to apply plans to protect the public's health and wellbeing from specific risks

Overview

This standard covers working in partnership with others to identify how to apply plans to protect the public’s health and wellbeing from specific risks. This is often known as tertiary prevention.

When this standard is applied to specific risks, a range of different legislation might apply. Users of this standard will need to be conscious of this broader context and the impact that it will have on the roles and responsibilities of practitioners, including the regulatory powers invested in particular roles.

Users of this standard will need to ensure that practice reflects up to date information and policies.

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Knowledge and Understanding

You will need to know and understand:

1. the social construction of health and illness and how this affects people’s perceptions
2. the kinds of misinformation which people receive about health and wellbeing and how this can be counteracted
3. stressors to health and wellbeing: biological; chemical; physical; social; psychosocial
4. inequality and discrimination and their impact on health and wellbeing, and how to recognise and address inequality and discrimination in the context of Human Rights legislation
5. risks to health and wellbeing - avoidable, relative and absolute risk, and the importance of the context of the risk and the factors that may modify its impact
6. appropriate risk management objectives
7. the concept of acceptable risk and whose values define this (i.e. political, social, scientific, the community)
8. how to assess different types of risk and appraisal of the different strategies for managing such risks, and the importance of taking action that is proportionate to the scale and seriousness of the risk so that fear is not disproportionate to the actual risk
9. how to plan investigations to address risks to the public’s health and wellbeing (identifying and accessing relevant information; using surveillance information; identifying the nature and seriousness of problems; developing baseline information; option appraisal for action; action planning)
10. team working to address risks to protect health and wellbeing: (identifying and putting into effect an appropriate plan; agreeing team roles and responsibilities; effective team working, communication and coordination; summative review of effectiveness)
11. regulatory powers of enforcement in relation to the protection of health and wellbeing such as detention, arrest, enforceable removal from environments
12. the roles and responsibilities of people and organisations involved in protecting the population’s health and wellbeing (eg communicable disease control consultants and specialists, primary care trusts/cooperatives, health authorities/boards, local authorities, environmental health, microbiology, genito-urinary medicine departments, infection control personnel, hospital control of infection committees)
13. the importance of, and how to achieve, effective relationships with the media in the protection of the population’s health and wellbeing
14. the specific legislation, guidelines of good practice, charters and service standards that relate to the work being undertaken and the impact of these on the work
15. the services, policies and priorities of the worker’s agency and how it relates to other agencies in the sector
16. the data storage and retrieval systems used by agencies working in health improvement
17. codes of practice and protocols about confidentiality and information sharing between agencies working in partnership
18. effective communication skills with people in own agency, those in other agencies and with communities and the public; barriers to communication and ways of overcoming them
19. own role and responsibilities and from whom assistance and advice should be sought if necessary
20. how to apply the principles of equality, diversity and anti-discriminatory practice to work
21. how to develop one’s own competence and skills in line with changes in knowledge and practice; how the worker’s area and scope of practice are changing, the evidence which is available on the work and the implications of this for their own skill and knowledge base

Performance Criteria

You must be able to do the following:

1. work in partnership with others to identify the relevant plan for the identified risks
2. work in partnership with others to rapidly produce an appropriate plan where no such plan exists drawing from existing plans that are relevant to the situation
3. identify in partnership with others
1. the availability of key people to execute the plan
2. known information on the risks
3. unknown data and information that needs to be obtained as soon as possible
4. who else needs to be involved
5. who needs to be kept informed (e.g. politicians, the media)
4. agree with others theirs’ and own role and responsibilities and the inter-relationship of these
5. communicate clearly and succinctly with others throughout the process in a manner which
1. is appropriate to the swift management of the risk
2. minimises any unnecessary information whilst being open to new and important information
3. focuses on the task in hand
6. confirm information received from others for accurate interpretation
7. summarise and structure information as it becomes available constantly identifying and updating gaps and areas for further investigation
8. maintain an ongoing accurate record of the information as it emerges, the actions taken and other investigations that have been put into effect
9. check that others have sufficient information from self to undertake their agreed roles
10. make and maintain contact with others who need to be kept informed to manage the broader context
11. review with others the effectiveness of the planning process once the risk has been managed

Additional Information

This National Occupational Standard was developed by Skills for Health.

This standard links with the following dimension within the NHS Knowledge and Skills Framework (October 2004):

Dimension: HWB3 Protection of health and wellbeing

This standard has replaced PH02.06