Dignity in Care – How You Can Promote It

What is Dignity in Care?

The meaning of dignity in the context of health and social care involves recognising and valuing the worthiness of every individual, regardless of their health or circumstances. It involves treating all people with respect, compassion and empathy, supporting their independence and acknowledging their unique needs, preferences and characteristics.

Caring for someone with dignity supports the self-respect of that person while recognising their ambitions and capacities without undermining them. Dignity in care means people are respected for what they do, who they are and the life they have lived. It’s a key factor that contributes to the quality of care. It can also be applied to the people you work with as well as those you care for.

Is there a Difference Between Dignity and Respect in Care?

It’s common to mistake dignity and respect for the same thing. However, treating someone with respect compared to treating that person with dignity is actually very different. While both are equally important, dignity is defined as ‘worthiness’ whereas respect can be defined as ‘showing consideration or regard for.’ If you do not act in this way, it can lead to people feeling undignified or disrespected.

For example, in care, treating people in a caring and compassionate way is classed as treating them with respect. Whereas providing care that maintains independence and shows compassion is an example of dignity in care. Getting your head around the differences can be confusing, but once you understand it and know how to apply both dignity and respect, the quality of your care will significantly improve.

Why is Dignity Important in Health and Social Care?

There are many reasons why dignity is important in health and social care. Firstly, dignity is a fundamental human right that every individual is entitled to and a person’s age, race, gender or health should not influence this. Preserving dignity has been proven to enhance a person’s overall well-being while having a positive impact on their physical, emotional and psychological health.

People who feel dignified, respected and valued are more likely to cooperate with their care plans, get more involved with decision-making and maintain a positive outlook on life with additional or in care.

Principles of Dignity in Health and Social Care

The principles of dignity in health and social care are established on the concepts of equality, autonomy, confidentiality and empathy. In total, there are 7 principles which offer a dignity framework for carers:

1. Recognising and respecting uniqueness
2. Adapting care and support
3. Effective communication
4. Maintaining personal care privacy
5. Creating a respectful environment
6. Cultivating a culture of dignity
7. Balancing challenging situations

These principles highlight the importance of prioritising dignity and are applicable across all care services. They recognise that there may be times when addressing certain behaviours, actions or situations that compromise the safety or well-being of individuals becomes necessary.

How to Promote Dignity in Care

The ‘Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014: Regulation 10’ covers dignity and respect. This regulation highlights the right to dignity in health and social care and it intends to ensure that service users are treated with respect and dignity at all times while they are receiving treatment or care. This includes giving them privacy when they need or want it, treating them as equals and providing the support they need to maintain their independence.

The regulation means that employees within a care service must work together to promote dignity in care. This includes the care providers, administrators and policymakers. Some things you can do to promote dignity in care include:

• Educating your staff – Knowing what training and qualifications care workers need and providing learning opportunities to improve their communication skills, empathy and their knowledge of dignity and respect can be an excellent tool for promoting dignity in care.
• Creating person-centred care plans – This involves designing care plans that take the values, preferences and cultural background of an individual into consideration.
• A supportive environment – Take the time to create a supportive and empowering environment that offers comfort, privacy and accessibility for all service users.
• Offering feedback and evaluation – Encouraging your service users to provide feedback on your care will help you identify areas that need improvement while letting them know that their voices are being heard and that their feelings matter to you.
• Emphasising co-production – Ensuring that people being cared for or supported, 'co-produce’ their programme of care, so that they have a clear element of control on how care is planned, delivered, the aims and outcomes they hope to achieve with your support
• Take a strength-based approach to care – While recognising which aspects of daily living people need help and support with, focus on building on existing strengths and capabilities, to maintain and develop these. For example, if a person is able and enjoys going for walks independently in the neighbourhood what can you do to support this and enable its continuity?

Remember, dignity is not a privilege, it is a basic human right. Legally and ethically, the right to dignity in health and social care must be prioritised and sustained throughout all health and social care settings. 

Preserving Dignity in Health and Social Care

When preserving dignity in health and social care, a comprehensive and person-centred approach is recommended. This involves taking both physical aspects of care and the emotional and social needs of an individual into consideration. Some examples of dignity in health and social care include: 

• Communicating with empathy – This includes being empathetic while actively listening to the concerns and preferences of your service users.
• Encouraging autonomy – Giving people the opportunity to make their own choices surrounding their care (within reason) provides empowerment and self-worth.
• Treating service users with respect – Treating your service users with respect and kindness will create a positive and dignified living environment.
• Addressing people appropriately – Don’t make assumptions when it comes to someone’s title and how they would like to be addressed, instead ask what they would prefer.
• Using the right tone – The people you care for are adults and while they may be hard of hearing or may struggle to understand you at times, always be polite and amiable instead of patronising.
• Respecting their personal space – Don’t go through people’s personal belongings without permission, even when cleaning. Instead, ask them if it’s okay to move things if required.
• Hygiene and personal care – Understand that people may feel self-conscious when undressing in front of you. Cover areas you’re not cleaning and ask for consent before doing anything.
• Promoting socialisation – People can feel isolated and cut off from the world if they don’t have a social life. Make opportunities for people in your care to engage in meaningful social activities.
• Engaging in conversation – Interacting and engaging in conversation with your service user can do wonders in lifting someone’s mood and building a relationship with them.
• Making food look appealing –Food at mealtimes may be the highlight of someone’s day, so get to know their favourite dishes and let them get involved when creating meal plans.

Assigning Dignity Champions

Dignity champions are employees within the care service who help their co-workers learn how to be respectful and kind to the people they care for. They do this by showing them how and supporting them, so they can be better at their job. Dignity champions are extremely important as they educate everyone on the significance of being kind, respectful and taking good care of people.

Dignity champions can be anyone from any level of a care service. They should receive specialised training to develop and improve their understanding of dignity in care as well. Their experience can be used to help colleagues deliver exceptional care that puts the respect and dignity of service users first while promoting a caring, considerate and person-centred approach to care.

At The Access Group, we're proud to support The National Dignity in Care Council that aims to promote the importance of dignity. Learn more about how you can become a Dignity Champion in Care here. 

How to Maintain Privacy and Dignity When Providing Personal Care

We’ve mentioned privacy throughout this article, so let’s take a closer look into the importance of privacy and dignity when providing personal care. Maintaining both privacy and dignity can be easily achieved through effective communication in health and social care. This can include explaining your actions or procedures that are being carried out on the service user and asking them for their preferences. For example, when being washed, are there areas they would prefer you to avoid? Would they like these areas covered?

This leads us to our next point, which is modesty and discretion. Using the right clothing or materials to maintain modesty during personal care activities can make people feel respected, dignified and comfortable in your presence. You should also let them get as involved as they like with their personal care. For example, allow people to perform as much of their personal care as they can independently while offering support when they need it.

Dignity and Respect Policies and Procedures

As you can see, dignity and respect in health and social care are concrete principles that can be used to shape the way care is provided to people in need. Recognising the importance and differences of dignity and respect in care and taking the right steps to preserve and promote it is essential when it comes to creating an environment that values and respects everyone for who they are.

Every care service should have its own bespoke dignity and respect policy. It’s a progressive management tool that enforces the correct behaviour and the procedures lay out the right actions to take if employees aren’t offering a dignified or respectful experience to service users. Here at Access, we have a policies and procedures digital platform that can help you stay on top of and effectively manage all of your health and social care policies, procedures, documents and forms in one place. 

Created by experts in Health & Social Care, including former regulators, clinicians and providers, our health and social care policies and procedures are quick to set up, easy to use and written in plain English and are approved for use with the CQC, Care Inspectorate Wales and Care Inspectorate Scotland. If you would like to know more, you can contact us today or get started by booking a demo.