A Paper on The Concept of ‘care’ in Social Responsibility and Health Practices

In most health facilities as well as the states, policies are exclusively focused on how to increase healthcare amenities access while neglecting the actual need for quality in care service provisions. The need to have increased demand for health services has assumed that the currently available care provides adequate quality. By expansion of universal health cover, the condition in health is likely to improve automatically. However, over the years these assumptions have proven to be incorrect. In this case, care refers to activities carried out in social and health facilities to meet people’s needs. Research has demonstrated that the existence of poor quality in health services provision has been the primary barrier to universal health access as opposed to involved costs. This paper seeks to evaluate key factors influencing understanding of the concept ‘care’ and how it is likely to impact social responsibility and health practices.

By having a clear understanding of various complexities surrounding healthcare, pragmatic strategies are likely to be informed for measurement and analysis of quality of health service. Analysed below are some of the factors influencing the conceptual understanding of care in social and health practice:

Clinical Excellence

This relates to the interaction between patients and healthcare as well as the manner in which particular inputs could be transformed into desirable health outcomes. In this case, the provided care needs to be effective in such a way that it isn't over-utilised or underutilised. This concept shifts the attention of caregivers from the use of equipment and drugs to the care process. While this cannot be used in isolation, there is a need to evaluate whether patients' health is likely to improve concerning the received care. In this regard, clinical practices are significantly associated with healthcare giver behaviour, hence providing a critical starting point in enacting measures to enhance received care by patients. This stands to the only effective quality measure due to the inherent impulsiveness in patient’s reactions to healthcare.

It is desirable to realise that the determination of the quality of clinical care faces numeral practical and conceptual challenges. For this reason, there is a need to have a solid base of evidence as a benchmark upon which interventions could be evaluated. In most of the developed states, the quality of treatment can be evaluated concerning the set national guidelines. Contrary, such standards are rarely found or poorly implemented in low-income nations. In this case, the measure of what makes up quality care is not established even in light of recommended guidelines.

Effect of Ethics

Since care encompasses taking necessary caution for incapacitated individuals who are unlikely to provide anything for themselves, ethics greatly influences the type of attention given to such persons. Besides, ethics ensures control of care given, especially to emotionally distressed individuals.

Providing care to people tends to bring forth issues both those whose care is being offered, as well as to service providers. Values, as well as ethics, are experienced through everyday ordinary social as well as healthcare practices.

Health caregivers tend to experience ethical dilemmas on courses of action that are likely to have moral repercussions. When a particular course of action is probable to compromise with a moral worth in support of another, caregivers tend to experience ethical dilemmas. Therefore, it is justifiable to have it that ethical values pose significant challenges in social as well as a health practice. As a result, there is a need for health practitioners to have guidance that tends to shape and inform their activities concerning care. In this regard, it is required that caregivers must safeguard interests and protect the rights of the services they offer. Some of the guidance requires caregivers to promote, and where possible respect personal wishes and views of service users. Besides, social practitioners need to uphold the autonomy of service users as they ensure individual protection from dangers. This is mostly evidenced where one making use of designed processes reports a dangerous and abusive practice to enhance safety.

Influence of Power

Power refers to the ability to act in a certain way, or the aptitude to direct a particular behaviour of others. In other words, power is an essential aspect as it helps in getting activities done due to the influence it causes to people.

However, although power helps in getting things done when the ability to influence is mixed with undue manipulation and coercion, it becomes difficult to be controlled. It is expected that citizens should be granted the right to decide on the kind of care they receive, what one eats, as well as how to socialise. In simple terms, service users expect to receive fair treatment, exercise some degree of authority, and receive care with some dignity. However, this is the most exceptional experience, mainly due to the imbalance of power among service providers and receivers. For this reason, power is one of the factors in society and healthcare.

Research shows that the application of biomedical model may sometimes compromise the way people's powers make them receive needed care as well as feeling valued as human beings. As evidenced in everyday activities, service providers have formed the habit of confronting issues related to power in their working environs. In this standard practice, they tend to have hard experiences in making decisions, for instance, a case on whether to take a child out from a residence, to maintain a patient in the health facility, or to avail specific treatments. These dilemmas come along with other pressures revolving from institutional needs, managers’ demand, and other laws within their facilities.

Despite the power of most service providers, service receivers also have various forms of authority. In this regard, one can raise claims and make demands at their pleasure. In this case, the exercised power can be associated with one’s position (formal) or through individual personality (informal).

From the above analysis, it is justifiable to conclude that power is a significant factor influencing the understanding of receiving as well as giving of care. In this case, the use of power can make a particular care to be useful or ineffective, depending on the degree of its manipulation. Since most service users tend to feel powerless, there is a need to enact additional support. In this regard, improved advocacy aids individuals in expressing their views, thus enabling vulnerable care receivers to make necessary choices and seek justice from powerful caregivers.

Concerning the social model, lay perspectives demonstrate how individual caregiver’s understanding of health knowledge of care receivers influences the quality of services offered. The social model suggests the need for a good lay knowledge as it helps in improving experts understanding. This involves deriving knowledge on how individuals interpret as well as construct their wellbeing. According to the social model, people’s perspective on personal health is mostly influenced by their background and identity. In this regard, the ability of caregivers to work with individuals’ interpretation of health helps in fastening the recovery process. Therefore, understanding the lay perspective of the patient aids clinicians to offer better support to patients.

The Social Change Effect

In this case, it is believed that social policies have a tremendous significant influence on individuals’ wellbeing. Moreover, they tend to influence available services alongside access to healthcare. In this regard, it is important to note that some social practices are likely to undermine individuals’ aspirations in a manner that is slightly related to the biomedical issue facing them. This is claimed to harm people’s sense of recovery as well as wellbeing. Therefore, a proper comprehension of social policies aid clinicians in delivering excellent care to their clients. Besides, government policies are claimed to influence individuals' understanding of responsibility. Therefore, a proper understanding of supportive government policies helps in improving the type of care given to patients.

Conclusion

Concerning factors that influence how care concept is carried out and understood, the research has analysed several factors as well as how they affect the understanding of the term care. Clinical qualities, ethics, the existence of power, lay perspective, as well as social change are some of the factors addressed by the text. The paper begins by looking at the meaning of care concerning social and health exercises. In this regard, care is explained as the practice of providing support to people, some of whom might be emotionally or physically challenged.

Clinical qualities highlight how the set standards within a facility influence the understanding of the type of care that an individual receives. In the same manner, the document uses ethics as a set of norms and practices held by both service providers and receivers. In this case, different values and standards are likely to influence the type of care given to patients. Authority held by both care receivers and practitioners greatly influence how care is administered. Finally, the text focuses on some of social perspectives, policies, and cultural practices that impact the aspect of care. Besides, the paper explains how such elements can be reinforced to aid in providing excellent care.