Ethics - an introduction
As an introduction to Ethical practice I wanted to quickly look at the 3 main components in ethics and how I personally view them before reviewing the case studies.
Personal - my personal ethical practice comes from a place of trying to be kind to others and the world. I try to be kind always to other people in the hope if I was in a less favorable place someone else would be kind to me (so Karma essentially). I try to recycle as much as possible and have recently started to buy skincare that is cruelty free. I try to consider my meat consumption and give to charity. My ethical beliefs and practices have come from a range of people. My parents brought myself and my sister up as kind children and I hope people believe we have remained so. My Grandparents however, and I love them dearly, I don't believe are as ethical - and this shocked me and reinforced my need to practice ethics. Teachers at school also enforced in me a desire to be kind to other people. I have done charity mountain climbs with my friends - and they have inspired me to treat the world with kindness too.
Professional - my professional experience of ethics at work comes from training in governance. Learning that any correspondence containing a client must not be put in any email unless on a secure network. No information can be left out about clients - as this is unethical - someone could easily read about a client and their medical history. I also don't talk about any clients unless I specifically need to. For example if someone's mental well being/self esteem is low, I would like to discuss this information with the psychologist - but even then I have to get the permission of the client. The only time this breach of confidentially can be broken is if I fear someone may be close to self harming or has discussed with me plans to end their life.
Organisational - as an organisation, we would not discriminate against gender, race, age or religion, as this would be unethical. Clients have to meet a certain requirement to be part of the programme and not meeting this requirement would be the only reason they were turned away. As an organisation we work in community settings to make sure we are allowing people from all backgrounds to access our service should they want it.
I believe that my ethical practice in all 3 of these things leads to me helping to create a better society. The reason I left my previous job was because (although the organisation wasn't unethical) I didn't feel I was helping towards that better society, and I appreciate now that for my life to be fulfilled I need to be helping towards that goal.
Reader 5 shows an interesting ripple effect on how ethics starts with ourselves and finishes in society. I believe a workplace can inform decisions about those ethical practices, and that your personal ethics can change slightly when in a different profession or organisation. Even as part of this course - the fact that ethics is the subject for a whole reader makes me feel kindly towards Middlesex University and gives me the idea that they want students to leave as rounded people who will make a positive effect in society.
I looked at the first case study regarding the NHS and looked at where I believe the responsibility lay....
I believe everyone has some ethical responsibility - personal and professional. However having worked with a council and having to respond to targets that are sometimes unrealistic, I know that the quality of care drops, it has to - so that people can hit target and continue to have jobs the next year. This is not to say the quality is always low, but at some point either you accept you will not hit your target and continue the high standard of work expected of you, taking care with each client and case - and potentially may lose your job, or lower the quality of care and put the target first. By putting the target first you then allow the organisation to continue its good work for the next year, however a few clients may get lost in between.
The medical organisation now has to respond to QOF's (Quality Outcome Framework), and the more QOF points they get, the bigger their budget will be the next year. So not only do healthcare professionals have targets to hit, they now also have to make up points that will account for how much money they will get for the next years budget.
The pressure on healthcare professionals is unbelievable. Recently on social media after a politician claimed that not enough NHS staff worked evening and weekend shifts, doctors and nurses sent in photos of themselves at work, and then again recently doctors sent in pictures of staff asleep at work because of the ridiculous hours they worked.
We are lucky that for most of us going home isn't an ethical decision - however for nursing staff and doctors, if their shift has finished and the hospital is short staffed and patients are waiting - is it really unethical of them to leave after a 14 shift? No, I don't believe so - they are human beings and they deserve to have a quality of life just as the rest of us do.
So we turn to the commissioners and Councillors and the government who fund the hospitals and we ask why there aren't more staff coming in to compensate for the extra demand. But even then those budgets are coming from our government because we are going through a time of cuts - so really the people to blame are the people choosing where to spend our tax money in my eyes.
The two health secretaries may have tried to stop a public inquiry into what happened in fear of what might have been found out about the NHS - but I feel we, as a society, already know the NHS is understaffed and overused, and an inquiry would have just given people a reason to be angry at the organisation but would it really have helped anyone? It could be that people who lost loved ones during this time want someone to blame and we can't really say anything about that as we aren't the ones who've lost - they may also want to stop this happening to other people, which in itself is an ethical practice, however if I look at the situation, without a bigger budget to employ more staff and resources, mistakes will continue to happen and patients will continue to slip through the net, inquiry or not.
I began to look at the second case study but found it very upsetting to read. I could almost hear my head and heart feeling the conflicting emotions. I wanted to look at other resources about Kevin Carter so read a few articles on him. One report said that the context of photograph was wrong - that the little girl had only been left for a few minutes whilst UN planes delivered food. This gives an entirely different context to the photograph and the man behind it.
However if the story is as written in the Reader, the conflict and tension is between an individuals personal and professional ethical conduct. If Carter had been told by his company not to make contact with the children in case of transmitting disease, he is required to listen to them - however I don't know if I personally could comply with my organisation and let a child potentially die by not being able to reach water.
We could reach this out larger though to society - what has happened? Why are there still undeveloped countries when we in Europe have such privileges? How are we as a world still letting this be allowed even now? And then it loops right back round to personal ethics - how do we as individuals make a difference?
Personal - my personal ethical practice comes from a place of trying to be kind to others and the world. I try to be kind always to other people in the hope if I was in a less favorable place someone else would be kind to me (so Karma essentially). I try to recycle as much as possible and have recently started to buy skincare that is cruelty free. I try to consider my meat consumption and give to charity. My ethical beliefs and practices have come from a range of people. My parents brought myself and my sister up as kind children and I hope people believe we have remained so. My Grandparents however, and I love them dearly, I don't believe are as ethical - and this shocked me and reinforced my need to practice ethics. Teachers at school also enforced in me a desire to be kind to other people. I have done charity mountain climbs with my friends - and they have inspired me to treat the world with kindness too.
Professional - my professional experience of ethics at work comes from training in governance. Learning that any correspondence containing a client must not be put in any email unless on a secure network. No information can be left out about clients - as this is unethical - someone could easily read about a client and their medical history. I also don't talk about any clients unless I specifically need to. For example if someone's mental well being/self esteem is low, I would like to discuss this information with the psychologist - but even then I have to get the permission of the client. The only time this breach of confidentially can be broken is if I fear someone may be close to self harming or has discussed with me plans to end their life.
Organisational - as an organisation, we would not discriminate against gender, race, age or religion, as this would be unethical. Clients have to meet a certain requirement to be part of the programme and not meeting this requirement would be the only reason they were turned away. As an organisation we work in community settings to make sure we are allowing people from all backgrounds to access our service should they want it.
I believe that my ethical practice in all 3 of these things leads to me helping to create a better society. The reason I left my previous job was because (although the organisation wasn't unethical) I didn't feel I was helping towards that better society, and I appreciate now that for my life to be fulfilled I need to be helping towards that goal.
Reader 5 shows an interesting ripple effect on how ethics starts with ourselves and finishes in society. I believe a workplace can inform decisions about those ethical practices, and that your personal ethics can change slightly when in a different profession or organisation. Even as part of this course - the fact that ethics is the subject for a whole reader makes me feel kindly towards Middlesex University and gives me the idea that they want students to leave as rounded people who will make a positive effect in society.
I looked at the first case study regarding the NHS and looked at where I believe the responsibility lay....
I believe everyone has some ethical responsibility - personal and professional. However having worked with a council and having to respond to targets that are sometimes unrealistic, I know that the quality of care drops, it has to - so that people can hit target and continue to have jobs the next year. This is not to say the quality is always low, but at some point either you accept you will not hit your target and continue the high standard of work expected of you, taking care with each client and case - and potentially may lose your job, or lower the quality of care and put the target first. By putting the target first you then allow the organisation to continue its good work for the next year, however a few clients may get lost in between.
The medical organisation now has to respond to QOF's (Quality Outcome Framework), and the more QOF points they get, the bigger their budget will be the next year. So not only do healthcare professionals have targets to hit, they now also have to make up points that will account for how much money they will get for the next years budget.
The pressure on healthcare professionals is unbelievable. Recently on social media after a politician claimed that not enough NHS staff worked evening and weekend shifts, doctors and nurses sent in photos of themselves at work, and then again recently doctors sent in pictures of staff asleep at work because of the ridiculous hours they worked.
We are lucky that for most of us going home isn't an ethical decision - however for nursing staff and doctors, if their shift has finished and the hospital is short staffed and patients are waiting - is it really unethical of them to leave after a 14 shift? No, I don't believe so - they are human beings and they deserve to have a quality of life just as the rest of us do.
So we turn to the commissioners and Councillors and the government who fund the hospitals and we ask why there aren't more staff coming in to compensate for the extra demand. But even then those budgets are coming from our government because we are going through a time of cuts - so really the people to blame are the people choosing where to spend our tax money in my eyes.
The two health secretaries may have tried to stop a public inquiry into what happened in fear of what might have been found out about the NHS - but I feel we, as a society, already know the NHS is understaffed and overused, and an inquiry would have just given people a reason to be angry at the organisation but would it really have helped anyone? It could be that people who lost loved ones during this time want someone to blame and we can't really say anything about that as we aren't the ones who've lost - they may also want to stop this happening to other people, which in itself is an ethical practice, however if I look at the situation, without a bigger budget to employ more staff and resources, mistakes will continue to happen and patients will continue to slip through the net, inquiry or not.
I began to look at the second case study but found it very upsetting to read. I could almost hear my head and heart feeling the conflicting emotions. I wanted to look at other resources about Kevin Carter so read a few articles on him. One report said that the context of photograph was wrong - that the little girl had only been left for a few minutes whilst UN planes delivered food. This gives an entirely different context to the photograph and the man behind it.
However if the story is as written in the Reader, the conflict and tension is between an individuals personal and professional ethical conduct. If Carter had been told by his company not to make contact with the children in case of transmitting disease, he is required to listen to them - however I don't know if I personally could comply with my organisation and let a child potentially die by not being able to reach water.
We could reach this out larger though to society - what has happened? Why are there still undeveloped countries when we in Europe have such privileges? How are we as a world still letting this be allowed even now? And then it loops right back round to personal ethics - how do we as individuals make a difference?
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