WHAT IS DUTY OF CARE?

Duty of care refers to the legal responsibilities that organizations and the staff within them have, that is, to do no harm to the people that they support.

In many cases, services and institutions have mistreated and abused clients, particularly in the past although it still happens sometimes these days too. This is why the duty of care was brought in so that those organizations have a responsibility not to harm the people that they support.

We sometimes misunderstand the meaning of duty of care that we have to protect the client from the client themselves, protect them from any mistake and make sure that they're not harmed in any way, that's not quite right. We should remember that it is protecting the clients from the US as services, NOT from their choices.

Historically, people have bubble-wrapped the clients and not allowed them to actually experience life in many cases. We need to understand that clients also have the dignity of risk, that is, every single person has the right to live their lives however they want to. Although there are sometimes when we do need to step into a duty of care.

The law has mentioned a few circumstances or exceptions as you might call it when we need to step into the duty of care. These are enlisted below

• When there is a risk of death or risk of permanent damage/disability, for instance, in the case of suicide. According to the Mental Health Act, the person does NOT have the right to kill himself. In that case, services do need to step in and the appropriate person who is authorized to do so can put the one who attempted to commit suicide in the hospital despite his choice (if he doesn't want to go)
• Permanent serious disability- if the choice a person is making is going to result in permanent serious disability then again we can step right into our duty of care and take action. Now, this doesn't mean just a slight abrasion or a broken bone, there HAS to be a serious disability.
• Lack of capacity- If it is determined that the person doesn't have the mental capacity to make decisions for their own life. Although that is not up to us to decide. That has to be after going through a legal process. Tribunals are one such procedure that looks into all the factors and gets information from all the people in that person's life.
• Where there are involuntary or community treatment orders that means the person is required to have treatment despite their choice of not wanting it. This is also decided through a tribunal or a legal process.

It is only in these situations where we are allowed to make decisions on behalf of the person and their own choices are not respected. It is a shift in the way of thinking about this for many people but ultimately it is about respecting the freedoms that the person has.