Task 2: Beeches Drop-in Centre
P6: Legislations are laws that are passed through parliament to ensure safe practice and
good quality of care in health and social care settings. They provide a legal framework that all
health and social care workers and organisations must follow. The first piece of legislation
that I am going to discuss is the ‘Health and Safety at Work Act 1974’, which promotes the
importance of safety and identifies what must be carried out in a work setting to achieve this.
In every act there are key points which make up the legislation, for example in the Health and
Safety at Work Act one of the features is ‘adequate training of staff to ensure health and
safety procedures are understood and adhered to’ (British Council). This states the
importance of training, as it will ensure staff have the knowledge and skills to cater for the
needs of all service users in their care, so reducing the risk of harming them more due to lack
of knowledge about policies and procedures. This will then reduce the risks of harm, abuse
and neglect happening to service users when they attend health and social care settings.
Another feature of the ‘Health and Safety at Work Act 1974’ is ‘maintaining a safe
environment’ (British Council). This feature clearly states that the environment where people
work, and visit should be safe and maintained regularly as the safety of others is paramount.
Furthermore, another key feature of the legislation is that the workplace should have
‘Adequate welfare provisions for staff at work’, (British Council) which means staff should be
supplied with acceptable welfare facilities such as adequate toilets, washing facilities, and
somewhere clean and hygienic to eat and drink during their breaks. Overall, the ‘Health and
Safety at Work Act 1974’ was put in place to protect anyone who encounters in the work
environment, it also encourages settings to promote high standards of care.
A huge breach of the ‘Health and Safety at Work Act’ is evident at the Beeches Drop-in
Centre, where they do not adhere to specific safety precautions which they need to take to
ensure the welfare of service users who attend is paramount. A key point of the Health and
Safety at Work Act is ‘adequate training of staff to ensure health and safety procedures are
understood and adhered to’ (British Council). This feature of the legislation is disregarded at
the drop-in centre, as they allow useless, untrained ‘volunteers’ to work alongside adults who
have social and health care needs and are clearly vulnerable. The behaviour of the volunteers
towards the service users indicates their lack of adequate training and knowledge towards the
health and safety procedures that they should know in order to work in this sector. This then
leads to volunteers unable to support service users appropriately who are exposed to harm,
abuse, and injury because of their lack of training about the procedures that must be
followed. In addition, there is no evidence that the volunteers have completed a Disclosure
and Barring Service check (DBS), which excludes dangerous people working in settings where
they could endanger service users and others. However, at the Beeches Drop-in Centre there
is no evidence that the volunteers have gone through these checks, which could mean
dangerous individuals are working with vulnerable adults. Another feature of the legislation
that the Beeches Drop-in Centre does not maintain is a safe environment as they allow the
staff and volunteers to neglect the safety precautions around the setting, for example they
lock the fire doors to prevent service users going outside and using drugs on the premises.
This is not only illegal but extremely dangerous for other users inside the drop-in centre as it
increases the risk of inability to get out if there was a scenario like a fire. The other key point
of the legislation I discussed is the welfare provisions that staff are required to have, however
at the Drop-in Centre there is no known place where staff can go and have a break. Also, the
state of the kitchen may relate to other places that demand cleaning, meaning places where
staff can go and take a break may be extremely unhygienic, as well as hand washing facilities
being inadequate which is crucial when working with multiple service users and in any health
care environment. This overall does not comply with the ‘Health and Safety at Work Act 1974’
legislation, as the Beeches Drop-in Centre does not create a safe environment that ensures
the safety of staff, service users and others.
The second legislation that I am going to discuss is the ‘Care Act 2014’, which was created to
support those giving care to vulnerable adults by encouraging their independence and
wellbeing by using a personalised person-centred approach. Key features of the care act
