4. Report problems. Legal and ethical

1. Sources of legal and ethical information

As part of your work as an allied health assistant, you are required to be aware of the legal and ethical requirements that regulate the health industry and your individual role. These laws and ethics begin life as global ideals which filter down to different countries, and then down further to different states and territories who interpret these ideals to suit their unique context. 

Your workplace will synthesise all this information to create guiding documents for people who work there. They are practical documents that give specific guidance, such as:

• Workplace policies: these are like a detailed guidebook for how a business operates. A policy helps a workplace follow the law, make decisions, and ensures that things run smoothly.
  
  
• Standard operating procedures (SOPs): these are step-by-step instructions on how to perform a certain task. They are based on the best policies and procedures, as well as national and international standards. SOPs explain what, why, and how a procedure is carried out. They also specify the rules, roles, inputs, outputs, and extra information for each step.

Illustration by Box Hill Institute, CC BY-NC 4.0.