| Site: | StudentWeb |
| Course: | 2025 Communicate and work in health or community services (VDSS_CHCCOM005) |
| Book: | 4. Report problems. Legal and ethical |
| Printed by: | Guest user |
| Date: | Sunday, 20 April 2025, 8:59 AM |
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:
Illustration by Box Hill Institute, CC BY-NC 4.0.
It is essential that you are fully aware of your role and responsibilities, and work role boundaries. Here is a guide to what you should and should not do.
Privacy, confidentiality and disclosure are key concepts to understand and abide by while working in a healthcare setting Failure to maintain privacy and confidentiality can lead to serious consequences, including legal and ethical violations, damage to patient trust, and professional repercussions. Therefore, health assistants should be well-trained in these principles and consistently apply them in their daily work to ensure the well-being and trust of their patients. Select the info icon to find out more about each principle.
Illustration by Box Hill Institute, CC BY-NC 4.0.
The following questions will help you review your understanding of the session. Select the arrow to move through the questions.
Sometimes decisions are made that appear to conflict with the consumer's choices, interest and preferences.
There is sometimes a conflict for service providers between performing their legal duty to act for and in the interests of the organisation, with honouring individual participants' choices, interests and preferences.
NOTE: If you become aware of a conflict of interest you must discuss the issue with your supervising Allied Health Professional (AHP).
One way service providers can address this tension is to proactively enable and support their participants to have independent support with decision-making in all aspects of their plans, supports and services. This is referred to as a supported decision-making approach. This ensures participants have control over their lives while reducing the possibility for a conflict of interest to occur.
If ever you think that a private interest could be influencing a decision or action of yours, it is important to discuss this with your supervisor or manager immediately. If you do not discuss conflicts of interest with your supervisor and decide on appropriate action yourself, your supervisor may not understand your decision. It is important to think about potential conflicts of interest you might encounter.
Think about ways that your actions or decisions may be influenced by your personal values that are in conflict with organisational expectations. As an AHA, you should avoid providing support to someone you know or are connected to in your personal life. This can be a challenge in rural, remote and regional areas where you tend to be more identifiable as a member of the community.
If you are asked to provide advice or support to someone you know, you need to advise your AHP supervisor of this and together work out a suitable approach to the problem.
A good first step to protect against conflicts of interest is to have a verbal conversation with your AHP supervisor or manager. Then, you should follow this up with a written account (e.g. an email or letter) of the solutions you both agreed to.
It is important that you, as an AHA, comply with all legal and ethical responsibilities associated with your role and discuss any difficulties you have with your supervising AHP.
There may be times when you are unsure or unclear about your responsibility. At these times, it is always best to seek clarification from your supervisor.
In addition, you may come across instances where you have difficulties perhaps with processes or procedures, consumers or colleagues. You must seek assistance from your supervisor to help you determine the correct path to rectify the issue. Your supervisor is there to help you.
The Australian legal system provides a framework in which all sections of the health and community sectors are expected to comply with a common set of rules called legislation, which is made up of a range of detailed requirements that provide descriptions of what must be adhered to and any penalties that are applied if the law is not followed.
As an AHA, you have legal obligations relating to your facility, your colleagues, your activities, patient/clients/residents, service users and their family/friends. You need to know the laws that are relevant to your work role.
Law regulates many aspects of our daily lives, even if we are not always aware of this. In society, laws develop over time to manage events in communities and resolve disputes when they arise. In addition to the courts, Australia has three levels of lawmaking:
Laws made by parliament are ‘statutes’, ‘acts’ or ‘legislation’. Laws set the rules you follow. Some examples are the Aged Care Act and Disability Discrimination Act.
Regulations support laws. They outline specific requirements and explain how to follow the law. An example is the Occupational health and safety regulations.
Codes of practice guide you to meet your responsibilities under duty of care. An example is the National code of conduct for health care workers (active in Victoria since 1 February 2017).
Guidance material provides advice on complying with acts and regulations. You can find guidance material on websites like WorkSafe Vic and My Aged Care.
An Act says what you must do. A Regulation describes how to do it. And an example of a Code of Practice is the National Code of Conduct for Health Care Workers (active in Victoria since 1 February 2017).
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All AHAs must ensure that they gain informed consent for all care tasks—therefore, clear communication is essential. Informed consent is permission granted in full knowledge of the possible consequences, for example, that which is given by a patient to a doctor for treatment with knowledge of the possible risks and benefits.
Informed consent in aged care and disability means that service users will be given understandable and clear information about their choices so they can make the right decisions about their health, support and care. Consent is their agreement for a service provider or support worker to provide them with treatment and support, including any tests, medicines, treatments or procedures they agree to.
Also, consent is required for normal everyday tasks. Often, this is implied consent, for example a client goes with the support worker willingly to shower, etc. There are many things we do daily where consent is given without a full explanation of legal ramifications. Before giving consent, service users should make sure:
Informed consent is different for different people. To ensure informed consent you may need:
At times it may be difficult to determine the ethical way to proceed in a situation that
confronts you. Fortunately, as an AHA, you have a number of
frameworks to assist you with ethical decision-making, as outlined below.
Ethical frameworks include:
The field of community services has very strict and stringent ethical guidelines to assist workers in how they conduct themselves in certain situations. Different sectors will have different guidelines and an AHA must have a knowledge of the guidelines that apply to their workplace.
However, having said that, determining what actually constitutes ethical conduct may be affected by the need to consider different legislation, principles of the sector's work, the rights and needs of the person who is receiving support/care and the rights of the worker.
Supervisors have ethical responsibilities to the people accessing the services, but also have obligations to other staff members in their team.
If you ever experience difficulty or are in doubt about what action to take, then you should discuss the situation with your supervisor.
Professional ethics include:
Ethics of care does not provide you with answers for every situation. Instead, it gives you a framework to think about situations you may find yourself in, on any given day at your workplace. Working within an ethical framework is important as you go about your daily routine. It is always helpful to be mindful of your legal and ethical responsibilities at all times and to ensure you report or discuss any difficulties to your supervisor.
Let's consider some key areas of which you need to be aware of as you undertake your role:
Focus on supporting the service user’s needs. Ask questions to determine what they would like, rather than what you think they need. Remember, not all communication is expressed through conversation, so look for other visual and non-verbal cues to identify what they really want.
Read more about person-centred care in the following sub-chapter.
Try to avoid accepting the many false assumptions about people living with a disability. Some false assumptions are:
When providing support/care to a service user, ask yourself the following questions:
You cannot completely understand the different meanings of small but important words and gestures in every cultural and ethnic group, but be aware that you may be unintentionally doing something that could upset the service user.
Person centred care is an approach that is linked to a person’s health care rights, and focuses on treating a person with dignity and respect, and involving them in decisions about their health.
Person-centred approaches ensure that a client is seen as a unique individual with valuable gifts and contributions. Person-centred care is health care that is respectful of, and responsive to, the preferences, needs and values of clients and consumers.
Person-centred approaches originated in the disability sector and are now used within the areas of mental health, aged care services, schools, the health care sector and the criminal justice system.
This process of consultation provides the client with a greater sense of control and self-determination.
Select each tab to learn more.
Respecting and valuing individuals by recognising and supporting their unique perspectives, values, beliefs, and preferences. Engaging in active listening and collaborating with others to create and deliver services together.
Offering individuals the opportunity to make choices and honoring those decisions. Ensuring a balance between rights, risks, and responsibilities. Enhancing personal autonomy by sharing power and involving individuals in decision-making. Promoting independence by focusing on and developing each person’s strengths, interests, and abilities.
Recognising and valuing an individual’s identity by appreciating their past, acknowledging their current experiences, and respecting their aspirations for the future.
Building cooperative relationships between service providers, service users, their caregivers, and staff. Fostering social connections within the local community by providing opportunities for meaningful engagement.
Organisational values grounded in person-centred principles. Providing support tailored to each individual’s needs. A coordinated, organisation-wide approach to fostering both individual and organisational learning.
Duty of care is the legal responsibility to protect the safety and wellbeing of others, which includes taking all reasonable steps not to cause foreseeable harm to another person.
Remember that as an AHA it is incumbent on you to ensure that the health, wellbeing and emotional and physical safety of the person in your care is upheld at all times. If you believe a breach of legislation, standards, codes of practice or guideline documents has occurred, you MUST report this immediately or as soon as is practicably reasonable to the appropriate people.
Likewise, If you suspect a task might be outside your role, knowledge and skills, you must consult your supervisor as to what to do next. You can face legal proceedings if, as an AHA, you are in breach of your duty of care.
Duty of care relates to the law of negligence, which recognises that people must take proper care to avoid harm to others. Duty of care refers to the duty (obligation) of all health and community workers to take care when they work with people. A duty of care exists whenever our actions could reasonably be expected to affect other people.
As an AHA you must maintain a duty of care to yourself, your patients/clients and your organisation. This means conducting yourself in a professional manner and protecting the patient's/client's rights to health, safety, dignity, confidentiality and self-determination. This will include managing risk and following the directions of the AHP for the tasks you haven been assigned.
There are also restrictions to what you can take on in your role. This means AHAs must think ahead about possible risks or dangers to the people they are providing care for and making sure they are following correct workplace procedure. For example, in upholding your duty of care, you must never perform tasks that are dangerous or which you have not had training in.
Behaviours or actions that represent a reasonable 'standard of care' always depend on the context including:
Intervene immediately if you observe a breach taking place, the breach is critical and it is safe to intervene.
Follow the guidelines and policies set out by your organisation.
Report observations or information about a breach to the relevant person. For example, a worker arrives at work to find the filing cabinet that contains confidential information about a person accessing services is unlocked. He writes an incident report and gives it to his team leader.
Seek advice from senior staff members when unsure of how to respond to a breach. For example, a worker tells a colleague that she intends to visit a person accessing services in her own time on the weekend. The colleague is not sure what to do or if she should make a report, so she asks her supervisor for advice.
Better to report and make a mistake than to do nothing at all. Always report to your supervisor first.
“When adults caring for children do not follow through with their responsibilities, are abusive or exploit their positions of power, then child protection is empowered to investigate the concerns and intervene to protect the child legally when required.”
Reference: Victorian Department Families, Fairness and Housing | Child protection, accessed 03/11/2024
The functions of the Victorian Child Protection Service are to:
Reference: Victorian Department Families, Fairness and Housing | Child protection, accessed 03/11/2024
As an AHA, you will come into contact with children in your job role, especially if you are working in the disability sector. You must follow child protection laws and specific requirements for reporting children at risk of harm, including mandatory reporting procedures in some states and territories.
You must have an awareness of the signs that a child has been or is at risk of significant harm, as a result of physical or sexual abuse, and reporting factual information and concerns to your AHP supervisor is crucial.
All adults completing child related work in Victoria need to apply for a Working with Children Check.
“The check assists in protecting children from sexual and physical harm by ensuring that people who work with, or care for, them are subject to a screening process.”
Reference: Victorian Government | The Working with Children Check explained, accessed 03/11/2024
Healthcare staff are usually required to undergo must also have regular National Police Check.
For more information on child protection in Victoria, see this resource:
Victorian Department Families, Fairness and Housing | Child protection
Mandatory reporting is a term used to describe the legislative requirement for selected groups of people (such as nurses, carers and teachers) to report a reasonable belief of elderly, disability or child abuse and neglect to government authorities. Parliaments in all Australian states and territories have formalised mandatory reporting laws, which can differ between states.
In Victoria, a mandatory reporter is legally obligated to:
Additionally, any person who believes on reasonable grounds that a child needs protection can make a report to Child Protection.
An AHA is not a mandatory reporter, however, they have a duty of care to report a reasonable belief of child abuse, even if the child is not their client. It is an offence in Victoria for an adult not to disclose child sexual abuse.
Reference: Victorian Government Department of Families, Fairness and Housing | Children, youth & families, accessed 03/11/2024
Abuse is commonly defined as any intentional action that harms or injures another person. There are many kinds of abuse, and these are normally defined by the type of harm and the type of victim.
Reference: https://www.slatergordon.com.au/abuse-law/what-is-the-definition-of-abuse#
Physical abuse is the non-accidental infliction of physical injury or harm to a person.
As a worker in the sector, do you think you would be able to recognise some of the abuse you have read about?
What are the signs, symptoms and indicators that would concern you, particularly if the person you are working with has difficulties communicating or is confused?
Unless the victim speaks out, it can be difficult to detect or confirm they are being abused. One key way to detect abuse is by the demeanour of the person you think may be a victim.
If their behaviour changes, if they become sad, appear distracted and disengaged, or if they appear to have physical symptoms such as bruising; it is important that you raise your concerns. You might want to begin by simply asking a question about what you have seen. You could ask the victim or the perpetrator. You could also ask others if they share your concerns.
Another way is to see how well the potential perpetrator responds to your concerns. Are they overly defensive? Do they seek to conceal important information? What have they done to try to address the issue that concerns you? It is imperative that you take action, even if your concerns end up being misplaced. This is for the clients who are less able to express their feelings directly.Now look at some of the more specific signs (select each title to read more).
Neglect is the continued failure to provide a person with the basic necessities of life such as food, clothing, shelter, hygiene, medical attention or adequate supervision, to the extent that the health, safety or development of the person is impacted.
Financial abuse is a type of family violence is when one person uses power and control over another. Withholding money, controlling the household spending or refusing to include you in financial decisions can be defined as family violence. Financial abuse can be present with other forms of abuse, like physical or emotional abuse, but can also be present without these other behaviours.
Reference:Financial abuse, Wire
Reference: Financial abuse, MoneySmart.
Exploitation is a form of abuse where offenders use power over another person to abuse them.
Reference: Child exploitation, Newham London
It would be deceiving the peoples of the world to let them think that a legal provision was all that was required ... when in fact an entire social structure had to be transformed.
Human rights-based approaches are about turning human rights from purely legal instruments into effective policies, practices, and practical realities.
Human rights principles and standards provide guidance about what should be done to achieve freedom and dignity for all. A human rights-based approach emphasises how human rights are achieved.
Specifically in Australia relating to healthcare rights, The Australian Charter of Healthcare Rights sets out what a person can expect when receiving health care.
Reference: Human rights based approaches | Australian Human Rights Commission, accessed 26/05/2024
The Charter states that a person, when receiving health care in Australia, has the right to:
Source: Understanding My Healthcare Rights, Australian Human Rights Commission, accessed 04/11/2024
Discrimination means being treated unfairly because of a personal characteristic that is protected by law, like age, sex, gender identity, race or disability. These are known as ‘protected characteristics’.
In Victoria, protected characteristics are:
Reference: https://www.legalaid.vic.gov.au/discrimination-and-victimisation#
Discrimination, in relation to communication, could involve the use of verbally offensive or abusive language or images to discriminate against any of the protected attributes listed above.
The Charter of Aged Care Rights sets out the 14 rights that protect people receiving aged care.
Everyone receiving aged care services has the same rights, regardless the type of care, and include the following rights:
Reference: Your right to quality care, My Aged Care
As an employee you have the following rights:
If you believe there is an issue impacting on your rights, you should refer your situation to your supervisor or upper manager.
Your workplace will have documentation that outlines your rights, responsibilities, job role, expected standards of work, specific tasks and conditions of employment. Examples of these are:
When you become an employee of an organisation, you will receive information about your rights, responsibilities as an AHA It is important that you familiarise yourself with these documents and that you understand exactly what is expected of you in your job.
Clarify anything you do not understand with your supervisor. As an employee, you are entitled to:
Workplace or industrial relations legislation protects your rights as a support worker. The Fair Work Commission (FWC) is the national workplace relations tribunal. It is an independent body with the power to judge or adjudicate over issues in the workplace including wages, terms of employment, dispute resolution or industrial action. The Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) provides free advice about workplace rights and responsibilities for either employers or employees.
