Delegated healthcare


Delegating healthcare to care staff: how does it work?


Oonagh Smyth, CEO of Skills for Care, along with Deborah Sturdy, chief nurse for adult social care, and Melanie Weatherley, director of Walnut Care, discuss what the delegation of healthcare activities means, how it works, and who it can help


Oonagh Smyth, CEO, Skills for Care The Guiding principles for delegated healthcare were published in May 2023, in a fitting collaboration between Skills for Care, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), and sector partners. The new voluntary principles support the person-centred nature – and the safety and effectiveness of – delegated healthcare activities which have been happening in social care already for many years. They are designed to be adapted locally to complement existing best practice and local protocols.


A delegated healthcare activity is an activity which a regulated healthcare professional, such as a nurse, nursing associate, occupational therapist, or speech and language therapist, delegates to a care worker or personal assistant. This could include administering insulin to someone with diabetes or carrying out simple wound care.


The delegation of healthcare activities


can provide many benefits to people who draw on care and support, including greater choice and control and quality of life – but it must be done safely and effectively, and it must always be in the best interest of the person drawing on care and support. Person-centred delegation is underpinned by an understanding that the person drawing on care and support is always at the centre of any decision around delegating an activity.


In some cases, with appropriate learning,


development, and support – and with the delegating healthcare professional retaining clinical oversight – care workers carrying out healthcare activities can mean that people drawing on care and support have an opportunity for a better experience of care.


Ahead of publishing the principles, we 24


spoke to a range of care providers, care workers, and people drawing on care and support about how they have been carrying out delegation for some time. Benefits which were cited by people


drawing on care and support included greater choice and control, with a recognition that delegation should be person-centred and for the right reasons. For staff, benefits can include social care


workers feeling more valued and being able to develop their skills with access to sufficient learning and development and clinical oversight. They also told us that working together with regulated healthcare professionals had helped to build trust across professional and organisational boundaries. It is important to recognise


Benefits include social care workers feeling more valued and able to develop their skills


that confidence is important as well as competence, and that delegated healthcare activities are not mandatory. Delegated healthcare activities are not only something which can be carried out by care provider organisations.


We spoke with one individual employer whose personal assistants had been developed and supported to provide activities previously conducted by the district nursing team. He told us how this change had benefitted him socially, physically, and mentally, and gave him more freedom to do the things he loves while still maintaining the clinical oversight and support of the district nursing team. Developing and supporting care workers to carry out delegated healthcare activities is a beneficial way to continue to invest in and value care staff that benefits both care workers and the people who they support. However, the delegation of healthcare activities is not without its challenges, and needs the right resourcing, commissioning practices, governance, training, and


www.thecarehomeenvironment.com May 2024


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