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Health and Social Care Unit 5 - Learning Aim C
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Health and Social Care Unit 5 - Learning Aim C
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Unit 5 - LACInvestigate the principles behind enabling individuals with care and support needs to
overcome challenges
In this assignment, I will investigate the principles behind enabling individuals with care and
support needs to overcome challenges.
There are people who are exposed to various forms of problems and challenges in the
health and social care sector.
One of these challenges is awareness and knowledge. This problem is where the user of the
service is oblivious of health and social care matters, such as health benefits and
regulations. Individuals within the ageing population, for example, may not be informed of
the financial aid available if they were needed to move into a care home. Likewise, if
healthcare organisations are not notified of or do not regularly refer to the new guidelines,
they will not modify their management style which includes policies and procedures, so the
guidance will be useless if it cant help and support their service users and may also put staff
and service users at risk.
Another challenge is motivational challenges. This is when an individual may have difficulty
trying to do a task which they may perceive as too long because of the lack of motivation
and encouragement. For example, a person who suffers from obesity may find it difficult to
lose weight because the process of losing weight takes too long and needs a lot of effort and
may feel exhausted just by thinking about exercising. Likewise, a practitioner or any other
provider of health and social care may have little desire to refine their way of caring and
would prefer treating service users their usual way, so there won't be changes or
improvements made to how they do things.
Next is communication challenges. This challenge means that it may be difficult for the
service user or the service provider to have difficulties in communication with each other.
This is usually due to old age and disabilities. For example, an elderly person may begin to
lose senses such as the ability to see and hear things clearly. Or maybe they have no teeth
which may make it difficult for the other individual to understand during conversations.
Additionally, they could also be reluctant to speak and find it difficult to converse with others
because they may have problems such as having social anxiety.
Another challenge is skills challenges. Additionally, service users may be vulnerable to skill
challenges. This kind of challenge is where the user of the service has trouble developing
skills such as using computers. For example, someone who has detached themselves away
from society and rarely leaves home because of problems may want to do some more
research on the support, care and assistance that they are eligible for receiving. However,
due to the majority of the information being online, they may find it difficult to use forms of
technology such as phones and computers, causing their skill level to be a barrier to ask for
support. Similarly, providers of the service may require more time to adopt new ICT skills.
Additionally, there are many different methods of identifying challenges. For example,
methods of identifying challenges may include observation, focus groups and talking to
individuals informally.
Firstly, observation is the ability to be able to rapidly identify problems and fix them before
they escalate. It assists in recognising and analysing trends such as actions and attitudes
that may indicate problems that need to be addressed. For example, if a professional that a
service user was limping it may indicate signs of abuse or neglect.
,Secondly, focus groups are small groups of individuals who share ideas and investigate
problems. And instead of making decisions, the majority of focus groups assemble
information to identify challenges and clarify situations.
Lastly, talking to individuals informally by communicating in a casual and friendly manner
which often helps to build relationships, especially with young children. Additionally, by
avoiding complex terminologies it is easier to communicate and helps to easily identify any
challenges that the service user may face without them feeling overpowered, nervous,
watched and questioned.
There are four methods of identifying challenges which are, observation, focus groups,
talking to individuals informally and using questionnaires.
First observation is a very important and valuable skill for health and social care
professionals. This ability can assist them in rapidly identifying issues so that they can be
solved before they become more severe. Observing and recognising behavior patterns, as
well as any developments, can indicate an emerging issue that requires treatment, such as a
shift in a person's walking style, signs of violence or neglect, or seeing any aspects of care
that could be enhanced, such as hand hygiene.
Secondly, focus groups. A focus group is a small group of people that usually consists of
about eight people. They are invited to participate in a session led by a facilitator and
possibly an assistant to discuss a specific topic, such as implementing new early intervention
programmes. Rather than making decisions, the collective exchanges thoughts and
investigates problems. The data obtained is used to explain situations and recognise
potential problems. The resources required to address these obstacles will then be provided
by health and social care services.
Thirdly, talking to individuals informally. Having a conversation comfortably with people and
using simple language rather than jargon or technical terms will help recognise any problems
they are facing without making them feel challenged or observed. This may be used to get
feedback on a new treatment that is being implemented in a surgical center or on a medical
ward.
Lastly, using questionnaires. Questionnaires are a series of questions being used to gather
people's thoughts on specific subjects in order to get an overview of a wide variety of
people's perspectives. They might be used when a primary healthcare trust wants input
from a community of practice-based GPs in their field, for instance. A very good
questionnaire is beneficial since it can easily gather a huge amount of data from a large
number of individuals. In addition, administering questionnaires is fairly affordable. They
don't really, however, enable for follow-up questions, and the number of responses may be
small.
A focus group may be the best form of observation for Valerie. This is because she is not
used to socialising, and this would allow professionals to understand how severe her social
anxiety or depression may be. However, it could also aid in helping Valerie to make friends
and be less reserved. This way of identifying challenges can also allow professionals to see
if there are any improvements being made to her mental health through her social
interactions in the focus groups.
In addition, talking to Tremayne informally would also be best suited for him to allow
professionals to identify challenges he may face. As Tremayne has autism, he may not be
used to talking formally as he could be used to talking in whatever mannerism he likes in a
, casual way. This would be the best for Tremayne as it avoids the use of complex terms like
jargon that he may noy understand. This approach may also be perceived as a friendly
approach for Tremayne as people often use casual language whilst talking to close friends
and family so this would build a relationship between the professional and Tremayne.
Lastly, observation may be best suited for Aisha. This is because it allows professionals to
be more alert regarding Aisha’s condition and see whether the medication they are
prescribing is having a positive or negative effect on her or even no effect at all. Additionally,
it allows them to keep an eye on Aisha’s behaviour to see when she is having delusions or
what the delusions may be about.
There are many ways of trying to overcome challenges within health and social care. One of
the strategies is education information materials. These are materials that inform and give
advice on how to face their challenges and live a healthy lifestyle to protect their physical
and mental wellbeing. Challenges that could be helped to overcome could be how to give up
smoking. Information materials come in various forms such as posters, billboards, games,
leaflets and presentations. Another strategy could be training courses that help and support
individuals to overcome their challenges. For instance, if someones are disabled or have an
illness, they can join a course that teaches them to move about safely to avoid causing harm
to themselves as well as others around them. One last strategy that could help people
overcome challenges are computer-aided advice systems. A computer-aided advice system
is an online decision support system that provides professionals with certain information
when needed. These are effective in the delivery of preventative services because they
include reminders that represent best practice and remind professionals to initiate or defer
away from a particular action.
As for Aisha, due to her vascular dementia, she could face awareness and knowledge
difficulties and communication challenges and might not understand, so she might not be
aware of the care and services she should receive and, also, she might find it challenging to
interact with professionals because she might feel overwhelmed and might forget the words.
The nurse at the community hospital may provide a training course to support Aisha with her
communication difficulties. The staff may teach her how to understand and use a
communication board as well as use signs as another form of communication. An
association that provides resources and training courses to support service users like Aisha
would be the Alzheimer's Association. This Association provided training in 'effective
communication strategies'. However, Aisha may be reluctant to participate in such a course
because she could feel anxious to go alone. Additionally, she may also feel that there is no
need for her to learn communication strategies since she lives alone and there would be no
need for her to communicate with anyone often. Regardless, because of the fact she is
struggling to understand her care plan and has no present knowledge of care she may be
receiving, this struggle may urge her to attend the training course in order to learn these
communication methods and clearly communicate with her practitioner.
As for Valerie, due to her not seeing the reason why she should lose weight and adjust her
lifestyle so that it has a more positive impact on her life, she may face challenges such as
motivational challenges and skills challenges. To resolve these challenges, her general
practitioner will highly likely encourage her to look at overweight loss materials. A material
that could support Valerie in her weight loss goals would be the "British Nutrition
Foundation". This is a scheme that individuals like Valerie with building self-confidence and
motivation by encouraging them to think of how to change their lifestyle to suit their needs
and make them feel a bit more comfortable. However, it is also noted in the case study that
Valerie has very low self-esteem which may take more time to persuade her to lose weight.
The British Nutrition Foundation has many different choices which may convince Valerie to
take part in the scheme by eating healthy and exercising. However, a barrier to joining this
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