Question

Case study (questions 1–21) Liam is the facility manager at a residential aged care facility. The service provides independent living units, community nursing and home care packages, day centre visits, respite care, palliative care, and dementia specific care, to older people. Liam is responsible for managing legal and ethical compliance within the organisation, ensuring the facility’s AHPRA registration and accreditation are up to date, and maintaining collaborative and effective relationships with all multidisciplinary team members. Lucy, a casual nurse, comes to work with symptoms of gastroenteritis. She knows that she should have stayed home but she knew the service was going to be short staffed. After carrying out her duties for three hours, Lucy talks to her manager, Janice, in the tea room. She explains her symptoms and that she is feeling weak and unsteady. Janice tells her to go home immediately as gastroenteritis is highly contagious and could pose a severe health risk to residents and other staff members. That evening, four residents develop gastroenteritis. Liam has left work for the day but receives a phone call from the night nursing unit manager alerting him to the spread of virus (herein called ‘the incident’). Liam responds immediately by ordering the service into lock down. One of the residents who contracted the virus is taken to hospital for treatment and is in a critical condition. Liam organises refresher training for all staff with regard to duty of care. Liam receives an incident report form from Janice regarding Lucy’s illness. He thinks that because of Lucy’s failure to comply with organisational work health and safety procedures relating to infection control, the organisation has breached its duty of care to provide residents with a safe and healthy care environment.

QUESTION- 1. List and describe two information sources that Liam could regularly access for more information about his organisation’s legal and ethical compliance requirements regarding infection control.

2. 2. Explain how Liam could evaluate his responsibility as a service delivery manager.

Answer 1

2.2 Service delivery manager has the duty to organize training, monitor the services and ensure that all the staff and residents have appropriate knowledge, understanding and skills to practice safe services. The case mentioned above indicates lack of education, knowledge and duty of care among the staff of the hospital that led to breach of duty of care towards patient safety and also the health and well-being of the staff and employees.

Liam as a service manager has duty in this case to gather the employees and train them or reinforce the organizational policies regarding duty of care, moreover, for current conditions the report needs to be recorded and the residents who are exposed to infection should be kept on care outside the premises to cease the spread of contamination. It is also Liam's duty to consider the knowledge and understanding of each staff member regarding duty of care, explain them and also organize the skill enhancement and monitoring sessions on routine basis to develop infection control and duty of care attitude among the workers and also ensure that the guidelines set by the organization are well practiced.

Answer 2

There are two sources of information that Prevention and management of healthcare and Association infection external connexion, to develop policies and implement methods for handling and preventing disease in the workplace, it offers information to workers and organisations in the community sector.