Legal Issues in the Workplace - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

1 / 57
About This Presentation
Title:

Legal Issues in the Workplace

Description:

It relates to those acts done to a person that infringe their ... as a result of dangling and becoming caught in the mechanism of the wheelchair during the ride ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

Number of Views:83
Avg rating:3.0/5.0
Slides: 58
Provided by: Jam289
Category:

less

Transcript and Presenter's Notes

Title: Legal Issues in the Workplace


1
Legal Issues in the Workplace
  • Dr David Lee
  • VUT
  • 2001

2
Group Work
  • Spend 15 to 20 minutes
  • Group into groups of 3 or 4
  • Identify legal issues at your work place
  • Make a list and outline the circumstances

3
The Law of Torts
  • Torts Civil Wrong
  • It is a Civil Law
  • It relates to those acts done to a person that
    infringe their freedom of movement and safety
    from harm. It protects patients from thoughtless
    or careless actions that could damage them in any
    way

4
The Law of Torts
  • The law includes the torts of
  • negligence
  • defamation
  • false imprisonment
  • assault

5
The Law of Torts - Negligence
  • It means that not doing something you should have
    done, or doing something you should not have
    done, which results in damage to the person

6
The Law of Torts - Negligence
  • The principle
  • the person who is the subject of the complaint
    (i.e. the person who caused the harm - the
    defendant) should owe a duty of care to the
    person making the complaint

7
The Law of Torts - Negligence
  • The person making the complaint (the plaintiff)
    has to be able to show that they suffered damage
    as a consequence of the breach of the duty of
    care
  • He/she must prove on the balance of probabilities
    that the defendant is guilty of negligence

8
The Law of Torts - Negligence
  • It is this area of Law that permits patients or
    relatives of patients to bring a legal action
    against hospitals, medical and nursing staff.
  • Such actions seek financial compensation
    (damages) as a result of an alleged negligent act
    which has caused personal pain, physical or
    psychological damage and possibly financial loss
    in the present and into the future

9
The Law of Torts - Negligence
  • Duty of care about relationship between people
  • Every individual has a responsibility not to act
    or fail to act in a way which is reasonably
    likely to cause injury to another person

10
The Law of Torts - Negligence
  • There is a duty of care between
  • employer/employee
  • doctor/patient
  • nurse/patient
  • So, not only patients but also staff, relatives
    and visitors are owed a duty of care in regard
    tot he provision of a safe environment

11
The Law of Torts - Negligence
  • Principles of an action in negligence
  • A patient cant take action against a nurse for
    negligence unless he/she can rove the following 4
    things. These are the principles of an action for
    negligence

12
The Law of Torts - Negligence
  • 1. The defendant owed a duty of care
  • A duty of care exists when a person is employed,
    on the basis of the knowledge, skills and
    qualifications that they hold, to perform duties
    to a particular standard to obtain specific
    results

13
The Law of Torts - Negligence
  • 2. The defendant performed their duties below the
    required standard

14
The Law of Torts - Negligence
  • 3. The plaintiff suffered damage as a result of
    the sub-standard performance of duties by the
    defendant

15
The Law of Torts - Negligence
  • 4. The damage must be as a direct result of the
    sub-standard performance, and a reasonably
    foreseeable occurrence

16
The Law of Torts - Negligence
  • All 4 points must be proved for a successful claim

17
(No Transcript)
18
Case study - the grazed feet
  • A registered nurse assists a patient, for whom
    she is responsible, into a wheelchair to take the
    patient to the shower.
  • The patient has little control over her limb
    movements, and requires assistance to get into
    and out of the chair. The nurse fails to place
    the patients feet on the footplates of the
    chair, allowing them instead to hang freely
  • when they reach the shower, the nurse notices
    that the patients feet have been badly grazed as
    a result of dangling and becoming caught in the
    mechanism of the wheelchair during the ride
  • the patients family are greatly distressed at
    what has happened to their mother, and bring an
    action against the nurse

19
Case study - the grazed feet
  • 1. Did the nurse owe the patient a duty of care?
  • 2. Did the nurse demonstrate a sub-standard duty
    of care?
  • 3. Did the patient sustain damage?
  • 4. Was the damage a direct result of the
    performance of the duty at a sub-standard level?

20
Professional negligence
  • The law imposes a higher duty of care upon those
    who hold themselves to be professional as a
    result of specialized knowledge, skills and
    training

21
Professional negligence
  • Nurses who assume responsibility for tasks that
    require more skills and education must have the
    required skills and education and be considered
    competent to perform the task according tot he
    professional standard
  • your performance of procedures will be measured
    against those of the ordinary skilled nurse
    performing the same task in a similar situation

22
Vicarious liability
  • What is the employer's responsibility if a staff
    member is charged with negligence?

23
Vicarious liability
  • The law requires that an employer hire staff that
    are competent to perform the duties that are
    expected of them in accordance with their
    position or job description.
  • It is up to the employer to check qualifications,
    references and competence

24
Vicarious liability
  • This means that if an employee performs below the
    expected standard of care and causes harm to a
    patient during the course of normal employment,
    then the responsibility for the negligent act is
    placed on the employer as well as on the
    individual nurse

25
Case study
  • A nurse responds to a patients call for
    assistance to move from his bed to the bedside
    chair. The nurse knows that this patient is
    particularly heavy, and that she may require
    assistance, but there is no one available to help
    at the time
  • while the nurse is helping the patient, he slips
    and falls to the ground, injuring his back as a
    result. The patient sues the hospital and the
    nurse for negligence and subsequent loss of
    income as a result of his inability to return to
    his former work as a truck driver

26
(No Transcript)
27
False imprisonment - patient restraint
  • The only time that health care workers can
    restrain patients is in the vent that they are
    likely to harm themselves or another person, or
    damage equipment or property

28
Different forms of restraint
  • Physical - safety belts, wrist bandages, sheets
    around the patients middle
  • chemicals - sedatives or tranquilizers for the
    conveniences of the staff is no longer
    appropriate
  • psychological - the use of fear as a means of
    restraint

29
Group work
  • What about use of cot-sides?
  • Which one of the following is a case of
    negligence or false imprisonment or both?

30
Case 1
  • A nurse runs a both for an elderly patient but
    fails to check the temperature of the water. As
    the patient is helped into the bath, she says the
    water is too hot, but the nurse knows that this
    patient is always saying things like that. When
    examined by the medical officer, the patient is
    found to have superficial burns to the lower
    limbs, which will take some weeks to heal

31
Case 2
  • A young, intellectually disabled female resident
    repeatedly wanders away from the health care
    facility, requiring staff to be constantly on the
    look-out for her. The nurse in charge of the
    facility decides to administer sedation to the
    resident to encourage her to be drowsy most of
    the day, and so give the staff time to perform
    all their duties in the hostel. As s result of
    the sedation, the resident spends most of her
    time asleep on the bed.

32
Case 3
  • An elderly, confused man is placed in a high bed
    with cot-sides placed in the upright position.
    The mans relatives had expressly requested that
    the patient not have cot sides, and there has
    been no medical order for them. The patient is
    restless during the night, trying to get out of
    the bed. He becomes wedged between the rails and
    sustains a broken wrist as a result of the
    position. The family take action against the
    hospital and the nursing staff

33
(No Transcript)
34
Assault
  • It can be defined as the actual or threatened
    application of unlawful touching of another
    person
  • It does not necessary mean physical attack or
    beating, it can be applied to any situation in
    which a person has an action done to them without
    their consent

35
Assault
  • Assault the fear in the patient that something
    harmful may be done
  • Battery actual hitting or physical act of
    hurting the patient

36
Group work
  • As a division 2 nurse, make a list of 10
    situation that can be labeled as assault to
    patients

37
(No Transcript)
38
Notifiable diseases
  • Health and government organizations have a duty
    to protect general public from certain kinds of
    diseases. These diseases are rapidly spread
    through close social or environmental contact,
    they are often termed communicable diseases.

39
Notifiable diseases
  • SCHDULE 2
  • NOTIFIABLE DISEASES
  • Group A Diseases
  • Australian arborn encephalitis
  • Anthrax
  • Cholera
  • Diphtheria

40
Notifiable diseases
  • Food-borne and water-borne illness (two or more
    related cases)
  • Legionellosis
  • Measles
  • Meningitis or epiglottitis due to Hemophilus
    influerircie
  • Menmgococcal infection (meningitis or
    meningococcaemias)
  • Plague
  • Poliomyelitis

41
Notifiable diseases
  • Rabies
  • Typhoid and Paratyphoid fevers
  • Viral haemorrhagic fevers
  • Yellow fever
  • Form of Notice
  • Immediate notification by telephone or other
    rapid transmission of an
  • initial diagnosis-whether presumptive or
    confirmed.

42
Notifiable diseases
  • Written notification to follow in the form of
    Form 1 in Schedule 3 within 7 days after the
    initial infection.

43
Notifiable diseases
  • Group B Diseases
  • Hepatitis, viral-all forms including
  • Hepatitis A
  • Hepatitis B
  • Hepatitis C (enteric form)
  • Hepatitis non A non B
  • Hepatitis (vial, unspecified)
  • Leprosy

44
Notifiable diseases
  • Malaria
  • Mumps
  • Q fever
  • Rubella (ineluding Congenital Rubella)
  • Tetanus
  • Tuberculosis
  • Form of Notice
  • Written notification in the form of Form 1 in
    Schedule 3 within 7 days
  • of confirmation of diagnosis.

45
Notifiable diseases
  • Group C Diseases
  • Gonorrhoea (all forms)
  • Syphilis (all forms)
  • Form of Notice
  • Written notification in the form of Form 1 in
    Schedule 3 within 7 days of confirmation of
    diagnosis.

46
Notifiable diseases
  • GoupD Diseases
  • Acquired Immunodefidency Syndrome
  • Form of Notice
  • Written notification in the form of Form 2 in
    Schedule 3 within 7 days
  • of confirmation of diagnosis.

47
Notifiable diseases
  • No Discrimination against patients suffering from
    one or more of these diseases

48
Patients medical records
  • Which records need to be kept?
  • Health organisations and their staff are required
    by law to keep and retain particular records.

49
Patients medical records
  • Section 109 of the Health Services Act Victoria,
    1988 states
  • 1.The proprietor of a health service
    establishment must cause to be kept in the
    prescribed manner and to be retained for the
    prescribed period the prescribed particulars of
  • persons who receive care in the establishment and
    the type of care received and
  • staff employed in the establishment

50
Patients medical records
  • 2. A person must not during the prescribed period
    destroy or damage any record for the purposes of
    sub-section (1).

51
Patients medical records
  • what this means is that the health care facility
    must keep a record of
  • who the patients are
  • what care they received
  • Who the staff are
  • and must keep these records for as long as the
    Act tells them to.

52
Patients medical records
  • For how long?
  • Depending on the records
  • Birth and death registers, operating Theatre
    registers must be kept forever

53
Patients medical records
  • Other records can be destroyed following the
    patients discharge, or a certain time after
    their last visit to the facility

54
Victoria's new Health Privacy Laws starts from 1
July 2002.
  • The Act gives individuals a legally
    enforceable right of access to their health
    information which is contained in records held in
    the private sector and
  • Establishes Health Privacy Principles that will
    apply to personal health information collected
    and handled in both the public and private
    sectors.

55
Victoria's new Health Privacy Laws starts from 1
July 2002.
  • An individual may make a complaint through the
    Health Services Commissioner, which may apply to
    situations where health information is being
    collected, used, disclosed or held or is
    unnecessarily suspended.

56
Victoria's new Health Privacy Laws starts from 1
July 2002.
  • The Health Privacy Principles will generally
    apply to all personal information collected in
    providing a health, mental health, disability,
    aged care or palliative care service and any
    other health information held or health related
    service provided by the University.

57
Victoria's new Health Privacy Laws starts from 1
July 2002.
  • The Health Privacy Principles will apply to the
    collection, use and handling of identifying
    personal information that is defined as "health
    information" under the Act, providing individuals
    with a right to obtain access to their own health
    information.
Write a Comment
User Comments (0)
About PowerShow.com