Comply with lawful instructions, regulations and duty of care in all work activities Duty of care Duty of care and reasonable care Duty of care is an important legal principle guiding service delivery in the children’s and community services industries. It is a difficult term to define as there isn’t a legal definition of the concept (except in occupational health and safety legislation). Duty of care comes under the legal concept of negligence, and negligence belongs to the domain of common law. Common law is also known as judge-made law, as the decision about guilt is decided using legal precedence and community attitudes and expectations. That is, there hasn’t been an Act of Parliament passed defining what is legal or illegal but rather the decision is based on what is considered appropriate or not appropriate at a particular time in history. In common law, duty of care means the obligation to avoid both actions or omissions which could be foreseen to be likely to cause injury to ‘reasonably’ other people. Community expectations have risen in recent years about what constitutes duty of care. It is no longer acceptable for people to experience physical harm and negligence while in a care situation, and we recognise as shameful the treatment of and Aboriginal children in institutional care in Australia in the 1950s. ‘orphans’ The practice of taking legal action against organisations has become more acceptable as we strive to improve the level of care provided and take duty of care considerations seriously. It is generally the case that, in services, the employer is responsible for negligence of staff. This means that any costs are carried not by the individual staff member who has been negligent but by the organisation itself. Organisations have professional indemnity insurance to cover such situations.
Comply with lawful instructions, regulations and duty of care in all work activities Duty of care Duty of care and reasonable care Duty of care is an important legal principle guiding service delivery in the children’s and community services industries. It is a difficult term to define as there isn’t a legal definition of the concept (except in occupational health and safety legislation). Duty of care comes under the legal concept of negligence, and negligence belongs to the domain of common law. Common law is also known as judge-made law, as the decision about guilt is decided using legal precedence and community attitudes and expectations. That is, there hasn’t been an Act of Parliament passed defining what is legal or illegal but rather the decision is based on what is considered appropriate or not appropriate at a particular time in history. In common law, duty of care means the obligation to avoid both actions or omissions which could ‘reasonably’ be foreseen to be likely to cause injury to other people. Community expectations have risen in recent years about what constitutes duty of care. It is no longer acceptable for people to experience physical harm and negligence while in a care situation, and we recognise as shameful the treatment of ‘orphans’ and Aboriginal children in institutional care in Australia in the 1950s. The practice of taking legal action against organisations has become more acceptable as we strive to improve the level of care provided and take duty of care considerations seriously. It is generally the case that, in services, the employer is responsible for negligence of staff. This means that any costs are carried not by the individual staff member who has been negligent but by the organisation itself. Organisations have professional indemnity insurance to cover such situations.
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