The Care Certificate
The Care Certificate is an identified set of standards that health and social care workers adhere to in their daily working life. Designed with the non-regulated workforce in mind, the Care Certificate gives everyone the confidence that workers have the same introductory skills, knowledge and behaviours to provide compassionate, safe and high quality care and support.
Course Overview
The Care Certificate is an identified set of standards that health and social care workers adhere to in their daily working life. Designed with the non-regulated workforce in mind, the Care Certificate gives everyone the confidence that workers have the same introductory skills, knowledge and behaviours to provide compassionate, safe and high quality care and support. The Care Certificate was developed for use in England and is the minimum training, supervision and assessment that staff new to care (health and adult social care) should receive as part of induction and before they start to deliver care out of the line of sight of more experienced workers. It provides a foundation for healthcare support and social care worker roles, ensuring that the new worker can provide a compassionate and caring service.
Who should do the Care Certificate?
New Workers, New to Care
The Care Certificate is aimed at the following types of workers joining a health or adult social care organisation without any past training or sector experience. However, employers are free to decide whether any other staff groups would benefit from undertaking some or all of the Care Certificate.
- Healthcare
- Healthcare Support Workers / Health Care Assistants / Assistant Practitioners/ any individual giving support to clinical roles in the NHS where there is any direct contact with patients.
- •Adult social care
- Workers will be providing direct care to people accessing a variety of social care settings which may include, residential, nursing homes, hospices, domiciliary care, supported living services, shared lives services and extra care housing. Roles may include: Care Assistant / Care Worker / Homecare Worker / Care Support Workers
There are fifteen standards that must be completed, involving knowledge learning, practical skills and workplace assessments. Completion of all standards is required to attain the Care Certificate The Care Certificate is based on 15 standards, all of which individuals need to complete in full before they can be awarded their certificate:
- Understand your role
- Your personal development
- Duty of care
- Equality and diversity
- Work in a person centred way
- Communication
- Privacy and dignity
- Fluids and nutrition
- Awareness of mental health, dementia and learning disability
- Safeguarding adults
- Safeguarding Children
- Basic Life Support
- Health and Safety
- Handling information
- Infection prevention and control
Each standard is underpinned by full learning outcomes and assessment criteria.
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The Care Certificate is based on 15 standards, all of which individuals need to complete in full to be awarded the certificate:
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Standard 1 - Understand your role
Your role will have a job description. This tells you what your main duties and responsibilities are and who you report to. Ask your employer for a copy if you do not have it. You should know what is expected of you but also what is not included in your role.
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Standard 2 - Your personal development
Personal development happens throughout your life. At work, it starts with agreeing your aims and objectives and thinking about your strengths and development needs. You then set goals so that you can meet your objectives and make the most of your talent.
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Standard 3 - Duty of care
You have a duty of care to all those receiving care and support in your workplace. This means promoting wellbeing and making sure that people are kept safe from harm, abuse and injury.
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Standard 4 - Equality and diversity
Promoting equality and respecting diversity are central to life today. To provide care and support that meets the needs of everyone you have to understand what these terms mean and take account of them in your work.
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Standard 5 - Work in a person centred way
Whether or not we are aware of it, we all live our everyday lives by a set of values that shape how we think and react. Values are beliefs and ideas about how people should behave which have been formed by our childhoods, families, backgrounds, cultures, religions, educations and relationships. Whilst we each have our own values there are values which are important for working in health and social care.
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Standard 6 - Communication
Good communication develops your knowledge and understanding about individuals and the part played by other workers so that the best care and support possible can be provided. It helps build working relationships where each person’s views are valued and taken into account.
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Standard 7 - Privacy & Dignity
Two important values when providing care and support are: Privacy: giving someone space where and when they need it Dignity: focusing on the value of every individual, including: respecting their views, choices and decisions not making assumptions about how they want to be treated working with care and compassion communicating directly with the individual whenever possible
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Standard 8 - Fluids & Nutrition
What we eat is vital to our health and wellbeing and how we look, feel and function. It is important that people have a diet that is safe to eat and has all the nutrients they need. Food safety is essential when preparing and handling food.
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Standard 9 - Awareness of Mental Health, Dementia & Learning Disability
This standard aims to make you aware of people’s experiences with and the causes of mental health conditions, dementia and learning disabilities.
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Standard 10 - Safeguarding Adults
The Care Act 2014 defines adult safeguarding as protecting an adult’s right to live in safety, free from abuse and neglect
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Standard 11 Safegurading Children
Child protection and safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility: it is not only childcare workers that have a duty to promote the welfare of children and protect them from harm
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Standard 12 - Basic Life Support
The information in standard 12 provides knowledge about the administration of basic life support. You should also be provided with practical training by your employer to be able to put the knowledge from this workbook into practice in order to be able to carry out basic life support competently.
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Standard 13 - Health & Safety
Legislation relating to general health and safety in health and social care The main reason for health and safety legislation is to protect people at work and those who are affected by work activities.
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Standard 14 - Handling information
Confidentiality is a very important right of individuals who receive care and support. It is part of the relationship of trust that individuals have with healthcare support workers and adult social care workers.
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Standard 15 - Infection prevention & control
Infection and infectious diseases in humans are caused when harmful germs, known as pathogens (or pathogenic micro-organisms), enter the body and grow. These micro-organisms are so small they can only be seen by using a microscope
