This report analyzes the impact of unethical behavior on the reputation of Stafford Hospital, public confidence, medical staff, and the NHS. It also provides recommendations for improving the situation.
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ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL SKILLS 1
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Executive Summary The report has explained various parameters of business regulations at Stafford hospital where the present t working scenario is not efficient and employees are also less in numbers which has become major area of concern. Report has explained in analysis various measures, development steps which need to be taken for responding to patients effectively and establishing high standards of goodwill. 2
TABLE OF CONTENT Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................2 INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4 ANALYSIS......................................................................................................................................4 Impact of unethical behaviour on reputation of Stafford hospital...............................................4 Impact of unethical behaviour on public confidence...................................................................5 Impact of unethical behaviour on medical staff..........................................................................6 Impact of unethical behaviour on the NHS.................................................................................6 RECOMMENDATIONS.............................................................................................................7 CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8 REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9 3
INTRODUCTION Ethics refers to moral principle, systematic and recommending concept that needs to be followed by people while performing various function as it describe about right and wrong conduct. Therefore ethics are essential principles that are needed to be considered by businesses in order to gain competitive advantages and maintain its brand image. This report is about an case study of Stafford hospital that is following unethical practice and providing poor care services to patients (Waddington, 2017). Poor care and lack of staff members has resulted in less availability of food, drink and medication thereby delay in operation and lack of care of patients. The staff members that are present within firm are untrained so it results in providing ineffective services.Such as receptionist that have no medical trainingfor assign to handle patient that come to hospital and people who need urgent care thus ineffective knowledge and skill have resulted in high death. It was one of the worst hospital care scandal that resulted in death of 400 and 1200 patients over 50 month due to care less services provided by the hospital. Stafford hospital has followed all such practices in order to earn maximum profit by reducing cost of hiring specialised staff and training employees to effectively manage patients. Therefore it can be stated that unethical practices used by company has adversely impact on its brand image and customers satisfaction. Company has lost people trust and high reputation has lost to provide better and qualitative services to patients. The aim of report is to explains role that ethics play in building strong brand image and maintaining customers loyalty within firm at the same time its promote long term growth and expansion of business. The mid staff scandal that occurred in Stafford hospital led to the death of an estimated 400 to 1200 patients and the sole reason behind such increased mortality rates was the lack of adequate care that was given to them (Mid Staffs hospital scandal: the essential guide,2015). This affected the NHS as well due to the Mid Staffordshire NHS hospital trust that was running the hospital. The impact of this incident was grave and can be evaluated in multiple contexts. ANALYSIS Impact of unethical behaviour on reputation of Stafford hospital Unethical behaviour of Stafford hospital has adversely impact on brand image and reputation of firm as it can be analysed from brand value of firm in the market. Most of the customers hesitate and restrict them self to went to Stafford hospital for operation as the staff 4
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member are untrained (Gardiner and Weisbach, 2016). Staff member are given responsibilities that were beyond their capacity so it resulted in effective management and shortage of food, medicines and appropriate care of patients. Top management of company does not supervise and monitor performance of staff member so it results in high mortality rate, death rate within hospital. Less staff member and lack of morale and compensation among existing staff has adversely resulted in poor health care of people and impact on reputation of company. Stafford hospital is also known for not providing safe and hygiene condition for patients and lack of specialised staff member to treat patients. Therefore from above analysis it can be stated that Stafford hospital should not be allowed to continue its operation as it has not followed ethical manner and behaviour in order to treat patients (Grosz, 2017). At the same time main objectives of company was to increase its profitability rather than ensuring health and safety of people so operation of such hospital should be closed for benefit of peoples. Impact of unethical behaviour on public confidence The confidence of the public is focuses or based on the basis of treatment and care that is being provided at the healthcare sectors. The more qualified the health professionals are and the more extensive the care plan is, more will be the confidence of public regarding the hospital’s capability to cure the patient toward a healthy recovery. After the scandal of the Stafford hospital came to light, it was identified that the extreme shortage of the staff and funds led to the development of poor care practices where the inadequately trained staff was being given tasks requiring experiences, at night the patients were being left on the junior doctors and there was neither any food or drinks nor there was any medication that was available for the patients (Topp and et.al., 2019). All this led to the increased death rates and ultimately a public enquiry was being raised on the hospital. This has completely lost the trust of the public in the activities that are being performed at the Stafford hospital. The hospital was termed as a complete failure of leadership and management where the heavily chaotic care management system and the messed up systems for the patients were found to be an extremely careless and unjustified approach that a healthcare institute can have towards its patients. The lack of the care plans that were expected from the hospital and further the lack of admitting to such shortage of funds has made the hospital unreliable in the eyes of the public where they no longer trust their lives with the management. However, the question of reopening the hospital or closing it permanently lays on the recovery 5
journey and mechanisms that will be adopted by the hospital (KHANI and et.al., 2017). If in future the hospital takes adequate action and consideration to compensate for the losses that were incurred than the chances of continuing the business increases. Impact of unethical behaviour on medical staff It was ascertained from the case study that already the staff of the Safford hospital was highly de motivated regarding their work and the other financial aspects (Jones, Curtis and Shaban, 2020). Further the shortage of experienced staff and leaving the entire hospital with so many patients on the shoulders of junior doctors who were not even adequately trained additionally put a strain on them that was more emotional i.e. they were literally playing with the lives of the patients. Even those staff members who intended to speak out and raise questions regarding the practices that were being adopted were shut down which further discouraged the employees. Overall the impact of the unethical practices has taken its toll on the attitude of the medical staff where the medical professionals working in other hospitals as well are no longer willing to work in such environmental conditions. The medical staff cannot work in the stringent conditions where employees are not respected and the care of the patients is not the highest priority of the management (Chung, Lai and Hwang, 2019). Additionally, the lack of any serious attitude towards the care practices that were being adopted in the organisation is another major reason why the dedicated medical staff might not work in the organisation where the health and safety of the patients is not the primary objective. The lack of any employee cooperation towards the Stafford hospital acts as a major force that can lead to ultimate shutting down of the hospital and if this needs to be avoided than the hospital needs to heavily restructure its existing working environment and conditions (Murray, 2017). The hospital can ensure the medical staff that their ways have improved and the employee perspective is critical for them and if this is done then the chances of continuing the hospital remains. However, of the hospital is unable to promise such things, then the hospital might need to be shut down permanently. Impact of unethical behaviour on the NHS Since the Stafford hospital was being externally run and managed by the NHS trust Mid Staffordshire, the deaths of the patients and the situation emerged as a scandal for the NHS organisation. The public report given by Francis devoured into the further aspects related to the questions that why NHS was unable to provide adequate funding and guidance to the hospital 6
and why they failed to recognise the poor quality of care and treatment that was being given by the Stafford hospital (Jefferies and et.al., 2018). The increased question that has been raised on NHS has made the organisation develop various measures and initiatives so that any future scandals similar to that of Mid staff can be completely avoided. The NHS commissioning board has also started discussion on the minimum and maximum staffing levels that should be proposed, the regulations on the practices of such staff that are to be implemented, the use of legally binding duty of candour etc. are some of the major considerations that are being debated (Gimenez, 2019). The NHS further went a step ahead and decided to develop a black list of all those managers who severely fail to comply with such duty and regulations that have been developed by NHS and the increased pressure and checkpoints is expected to generate a positive outcome. It is expected that the increase regulation and security of the patients will help in developing and implementation of robust systems for the management of different hospitals. Therefore, it can be collectively said that the impact of the scandal that occurred in Stafford hospital has affected the working of the healthcare organisations operating all through the UN and the public as well. RECOMMENDATIONS ï‚·Stafford Hospital departments need to focus on recruiting large skilled employees workforce, who have skills and advance medical knowledge to work effectively in servingpatientswithvariousdiseases.ThereshouldbefocusonHRdepartment functions on gaining commitment from employees working in hospitals by providing them motivation and strong ethical platforms of training. There needs to be built internal strength within hospital framework for gaining high ethical performance and functionally being able to deliver services with large focus ï‚·Stafford hospitals need to focus on infrastructure development and hygienic factors for enabling patients to lead high comfortable experience while they come in for treatments. This will gain high goodwill among consumers, ethically represent strong brand image among people which will leverage high profits and competitive value among other hospitals. Hygienic factor must be gained high importance towards patients safety, experienceofregularmedicalcheckupswhichwillenhanceitspositionamong customers. 7
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ï‚·There should be strong focus given to training and development parameters among employees within hospital to generate high quality standards, functionally enable them to delivertreatmentstoallagegrouppatients.Hospitalmusttakeregulartraining, brainstorming sessions among employees which will not only motivate them and keenly raise their capabilities but also make them work hardly with commitment towards their duties towards patients. These recommendations will marinating quality performance among services, products at Stafford hospital and leverage high goodwill among consumers which is not only an important aspect to rectify present working scenario, but also leverage high goals in future. Stafford Hospitalneedstogenerateefficiencywithincompanymanagementteams,structurally cooperate with ethical practices and make new innovations in machinery equipments while serving customers. These will not only eliminate present crisis conditions but also open various future high profitability goals, keenly target the main arenasof gathering huge importance and cultivating various frameworks of creative business ideas which will help for high performance in future (McKinley, Limbu and Pham, 2019). CONCLUSION The report can be concluded by the detailed explanation on the fact that maintaining quality standards and integrating innovative technology standards is highly important business function for occupying strong place in the highly competitive world. Stafford hospital case study analyses various segments of inefficient staff members, no legal training given to them which constructs the factor of death in various patients. The report has concluded immense importance of bringing ethical business practices in company formation where services must govern to strong ethical usage, bringing innovation and legally delivering medical facilities to people. Further it has concluded the various initiatives with needs to be generated and are still lacking within hospital framework for reaching high standards, productive delivery of services and maintenance of functional efficiency. The report concludes business paradigms by training employees, importance of recruiting large number of employees based on their skills, efficiency levels for strong position and delivery of duties to patients (Ferreira and Marques, 2019). 8
REFERENCES Books and journals Chung, C.J., Lai, C.L. and Hwang, G.J., 2019. Roles and research trends of flipped classrooms in nursing education: a review of academic publications from 2010 to 2017.Interactive Learning Environments, pp.1-22. Ferreira, D. C. and Marques, R. C., 2019. Do quality and access to hospital services impact on their technical efficiency?.Omega.86. pp.218-236. Gardiner, S. M. and Weisbach, D. A., 2016.Debating climate ethics. Oxford University Press. Gimenez, J., 2019.Writing for nursing and midwifery students. Macmillan International Higher Education. Grosz, E., 2017.The incorporeal: Ontology, ethics, and the limits of materialism. Columbia University Press. Jefferies, D., and et.al., 2018. The importance of academic literacy for undergraduate nursing students and its relationship to future professional clinical practice: a systematic review.Nurse education today.60. pp.84-91. Jones, T., Curtis, K. and Shaban, R.Z., 2020. Academic and professional characteristics of Australiangraduateemergencynursingprograms:Anationalstudy.Australasian Emergency Care. KHANI, J.A., and et.al., 2017. THE EFFECT OF TEACHING ETHICAL PRINCIPLES THROUGH ROLE PLAYING ON NURSING STUDENTS INTERNSHIP SKILLS. McKinley, C., Limbu, Y. and Pham, L., 2019. An Investigation of Processes Linking Patient- CenteredCommunicationApproachestoFavorableImpressionsofVietnamese PhysiciansandHospitalServices.InternationalJournalofSociety,Culture& Language, pp.1-16. Murray, A.C., 2017.Academic, Professional, and Personal Impact of Skills Acquisition for Nursing Students Following a Structured Process Education Experience: Learning to Learn Camp(Doctoral dissertation, William Carey University). Topp,K.,andet.al.,2019.AGrantFundedAcademicandProfessionalOrganization CollaborationtoMentorStudentNursesinDevelopingaNursingInformatics Conference.Journal of Informatics Nursing.4(2). pp.15-17. Waddington, C. H., 2017.Science and Ethics: An Essay. Routledge. Online MidStaffshospitalscandal:theessentialguide.2015.[ONLINE]Availablethrough:< https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/feb/06/mid-staffs-hospital-scandal-guide>. 9