Professional Boundaries Awareness

Staff working in health and social care generally form very personal relationships with their patients or clients. Understanding how to maintain professional boundaries is vital for the well-being of both staff members and service users.

Examples of professional boundaries in health and social care include:

• Professional relationship: care workers should keep their relationship professional with service users and strictly not outside the service.
• Patient-first priority: all decisions made by care staff or care providers should consider the needs of the patient/service user first.
• Confidential information: health and social care staff should only attain patient information that is relevant to their care and should keep that personal information confidential where necessary.
• Manage workload: staff in the health and social care industry are susceptible to burnout or general tiredness from overworking. Care staff should request support so that this does not affect the service they provide patients.

People working in health and social care usually do it because they really care about the wellbeing of those that they look after. It’s important that professional boundaries are maintained in order to safeguard both employees and patients so that care workers are able to carry out their care duties effectively.

This Professional Boundaries Awareness training course teaches health and social care staff how to identify poor practice, the consequences of it, and how to establish professional boundaries.