Fostering Dignity and Respect in Health and Social Care

This document discusses the importance of fostering dignity and respect in health and social care, using the case study of Mrs. Wang. It covers the understanding of ethical and moral concepts, effective communication and interpersonal skills, and strategies for enhancing dignity and respect. The document provides insights into the principles and concepts of ethics, as well as strategies such as communication, counseling, and shared decision-making.

FOSTERING
DIGNITY AND
RESPECT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
QUESTION 1...................................................................................................................................1
Demonstration of understanding of ethical and moral concepts............................................1
QUESTION 2...................................................................................................................................4
Discussion of effective communication and interpersonal skills...........................................4
QUESTION 4...................................................................................................................................6
Identification of Strategies for enhancing dignity and respect...............................................6
QUESTION 3...................................................................................................................................7
Examination and Reflection upon personally held values.....................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Dignity and respect are crucial aspects to be considered in health and social care and it is
considered within one of the major responsibilities of all the professionals working within this
sector. It is associated with protecting a person's rights, providing them effective care and
effective provision of respect to the patient under all circumstances (Hanna and Robert, 2019).
Hence, in this context, below is a detailed account of dignity of respect within the case study of
Mrs. Wang. The report would hence cover an effective demonstration of understanding of ethical
and moral concepts within the professional healthcare setting, along with discussion of
communication and interpersonal skills. Moreover, the assignment also covers identification of
strategies for enhancing dignity and respect accorded to people in healthcare setting and
examination and reflection upon personally held values and their impact on practice, individual
learning and personal development.
QUESTION 1
Demonstration of understanding of ethical and moral concepts
Ethics refer to a person's deposition, nature, as well as character, which is related to
morals, which is directed towards distinction and differentiation between what is right and wrong
within different practices (Leathard and McLaren, 2007). According to the case study, Mrs.
Wang is a patient at Guy's and St. Thomas NHS Foundation Trust, who is suffering from lung
cancer. With severely poor symptoms and prognosis, she is believed to have very less time left to
give. In addition, despite of having an understanding of the English language, she uses Mandarin
to communicate to he professionals. On the other hand, her two sons and extended family have
requested that she must not be told about her actual condition, rather than be lied about her
tumour being in a non-malignant state.
Hence, in this context, below are several ethical principles, as well a strategies that are
required to be understood and implemented in order to appropriately and effectively support Mrs.
Wang within her situation.
Ethical Principles:
There are several ethical principles that are in accordance with the case study mentioned
above. Some of the most prominent ones are discussed below:
 Beneficence:
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This ethical principle is related to as an act of mercy, kindness and charity, which is
subjected towards doing good to other individuals as a part of moral obligation of individuals.
Hence as per the case study, Mrs. Wang has been suffering from symptoms like loss of weight,
persistent could as well as breathlessness. Hence, this directly impacts the case study as the
nurses and medical professionals within the organisation must work towards ensuring
beneficence in context of Mrs. Wang. However, a violation of this principle could be to abruptly
notify her of her condition, without seeking professional guidance and adherence to safety,
which might be emotionally stressful for Mrs. Wang.
 Respect:
In context of this principle, proper respect must be provided to patients within the
healthcare irrespective of their physical or mental condition. In this regard, one aspect associated
with respecting Mrs. Wang is to ensure complete transparency towards her medical state, along
with communication of the consequences of the same. Not doing so would be violating this
principle to a very grieve extent.
 Autonomy:
According to this principle, there are several variables that are necessary to be put into
practice, such as decision-making, disclosure, informed consent and truth telling. A violation of
this principle would be to keep Mrs. Wang in the dark in context of her situation, as well as take
decisions that are not in the favour of the dignity and respect of the patient as they must be a top
priority of the healthcare professions, as well as the organisation.
Ethical Concepts
Aligning with these ethical principles, there are several appropriate and effective
concepts of ethics that are very crucial to be understood and implemented within the case study.
 Human Rights:
This concept is associated with adherence, as well as protection of rights of the patients
within the organisation for their treatment. A violation of this right on the professional part of the
nurse and other professionals related to the case study would be to not protect Mrs. Wang's rights
of transparency, as well as honesty by lying to her about her condition (Baines and Armstrong,
2018).
 Freedom:
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Within this concept, it is considered as ethical for professionals to provide certain
freedoms to the patients, such as freedom of choice. Moreover, this concept undermines the
dignity and respect of Mrs. Wang. In this context, a violation from the Trust's staff would be
associated with refraining Mrs. Wang of choosing an appropriate treatment as per her condition.
 Responsibilities:
This concept is associated with adherence to the responsibilities of medical professionals
towards their patients. One of the major responsibilities of the nurses and healthcare employees
in this case study is to understand their responsibilities towards disclosure of information and
adherence to confidentiality and trust towards the patient as well as her family. However, a
breach of the same would be to not adhere to basic principles of ethics while fulfilling these
responsibilities towards either of the parties involved (Edmonson, Bolick and Lee, 2017).
Strategies to support Mrs. Wang's dignity
As per the above analysis, it could be stated that several wrong decision making, as well
as not adhering to the rights of Mrs. Wang and responsibilities in context of ethics could lead to a
serious violation of the principles and concepts of ethics. In addition to this, it is important that
several strategies are crafted, as well as implemented to ensure provision of effective support as
well as dignity to Mrs. Wang. Therefore, in this context, different strategies related to the same
are as follows:
 Communication:
One of the most prominent strategies to provide dignity to Mrs. Wang is to use
communication in order to appropriately understand Mrs. Wang's will and perception about her
medical condition. Thus, in order to communicate, a protected environment must be created
around Mrs. Wang, under which the professionals would be communicating her about what she
wishes to know about her prognosis and how best she believes the professionals could deal with
it. A positive influence of this would be that Mrs. Wang would be taken into consideration in
context of all the future medical procedures that would be followed by the organisation.
Moreover, this would also be showcasing a prominent level of respect and dignity to the person
in question, through providing her with choices related to her treatment and medical condition
(Blanchet-Cohen and Richardson/Kinewesquao, 2017).
 Counselling:
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Another prominent strategy in this regard is related to counselling. This requires the
nurses and medical professional to provide counselling to Mrs. Wang, as well as her family
members. This is very much required to effectively provide an insight to both the parties
regarding the medical procedures that would be implemented within the treatment. Moreover, as
for the family members, counselling is very much necessary to keep a perspective open about the
disclosure of prognosis to Mrs. Wang.
 Shared Decision-making:
As per this strategy, a shared decision-making must be taken into consideration by the
medical professionals of the Trust, that must include the members of Mrs. Wang's family, as well
as the patient herself. A positive impact of the same that would be witnessed upon the patient as
a collective decision could be taken by the professionals and her family with respect to her
condition, that would be best to support her during the treatment of lung cancer. On the other
hand, collective decision-making would also be providing effective respect and protection to
dignity of Mrs. Wang (Doron and Foster, 2016).
QUESTION 2
Discussion of effective communication and interpersonal skills
Effective communication refers to appropriate sharing of information within, as well as,
outside an organisation. It is a very necessary aspect within healthcare as the professionals in
such a setting is required to deal with different patients, colleagues and peers of families of
service users. Thus, providing them with a clear and accurate communication is very important
to be directed to these individuals in an effective manner, to maintain the consistency of good
practices as per the requirements of the medical sector (Coyne, Holmström and Söderbäck,
2018).
There are different types of communication that could take place within the case study of
Mrs. Wang. Two of the most prominent communication types are hence, explained below:
 Verbal Communication:
One of the first types of communication is verbal communication. This refers to sharing
of information through using phrases and words by the sender as well as the receiver. In the
present case scenario, Mrs. Wang is very much hesitant in context of communicating within
English language (Nunes, Rego and Nunes, 2015). The reason for this is that Mandarin is her
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first language. Moreover, at the age and stage of life she is in, she perhaps is quite reluctant into
being outside her comfort zone. Hence, there are several ways through which the dignity and
respect of Mrs. Wang through verbal communication. For example, the professionals and nurses
of the Trust must keep in mind to keep their language very simple, considering the fact that the
service user has only some basic knowledge about the language. Moreover, a clear and precise
pronunciation must be practised by these individuals with Mrs. Wang, which would be allowing
her to feel respected and considerate about her demands.
 Non-verbal Communication:
This type of communication takes place in distinct manners, such as in writing, body
language, as well as gestures used by the clients (Calloway-Thomas, Arasaratnam-Smith and
Deardorff, 2017). Hence, there are several ways in which dignity and respect could be provided
to Mrs. Wang while communicating with her. For instance, the professionals must undertake a
prominent use of gestures while explaining and communicating with the service user, which
would be allowing her to understand what is being tried to communicate to her, as well as would
allow to deal with her through appropriate compassion, which would make her more comfortable
with the service providers. Moreover, this would also enhance the trust factor within the mindset
of Mrs. Wang, that would be very effective for further treatments.
However, in this regard, there are several appropriate and effective interpersonal skills
that could be used by the professionals within the Trust to appropriately and effectively provide
dignity and respect to the patient. Hence, some of these skills and their implementation are
provided below:
 Compassion:
One of the most important and effective skill in question is compassion, which means
sympathetic pity an concern for the misfortune or suffering of others. It is required to be
appropriately and effectively showcased within the case scenario to ensure protection of dignity
and respect of the patient. Moreover, this skill is necessary to motivate professionals to go out of
their way to help ease the mental, physical and emotional pains of individuals within a health and
social care setting (Matiti, 2015).
 Empathy:
Another effective interpersonal skill is empathy. This competence is related to taking
effective actions that are in accordance with others' feelings an emotions. This skill could be
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utilised by the professionals with Mrs. Wang through communicating her about how she feels
and what she expects from the organisation, and moulding the practices as per her responses.
Moreover, the disclosing decisions must be taken by acquiring her consent, as well as a mutually
agreeing by her family members.
 Teamwork:
A person-centred approach must appropriately and effectively be undertaken by the trust
to ensure effectiveness in providing treatment to the organisation. This is because teamwork with
the staff members, the patient as well as her family would allow to gain a better insight onto the
most appropriate and effective ways in which best care could be provided to Mrs. Wang. For this
purpose, appropriate groups must be formulated, along with a personal care network, who would
be directed towards provision of effective care to the service user to help her deal with her lung
cancer in an appropriate manner (Foster and et. al., 2016).
QUESTION 4
Identification of Strategies for enhancing dignity and respect
From the case study, it becomes necessary that it is a need for increasing dignity and
respect of Mrs. Wang in an effective manner. The reason of this is because due to her condition,
she might suffer more severe consequences in near future, as per her prognosis, which must be a
cause of concern for the professionals, as well as her family. Hence, several strategies to increase
these ethical aspects are explained below:
 Provision of Authority:
A way through which the dignity and respect of Mrs. Wang could be increased is through
providing her with appropriate and effective authority. This means that she must be provided
with effective power to direct her treatment in her own terms, by acquisition of support, as well
as feedback, which would be subjected towards enabling her to take her own decisions, that is a
part of dignity and respect.
 Communication:
Another way through which these elements could be enhanced is through
communication. This is necessary as her situation won't foster with time, which would lead to
her deterioration, and ultimately she might guess the truth herself. Hence, to enhance the respect
provided to her, along with protection of dignity, she must be communicated the truth in a safe,
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precise and transparent manner. Moreover, this should be done by providing counselling to the
members of her family as to how to best deal with her situation (Jones, 2015).
 Pain Management:
This strategy which is related to increasing dignity and respect requires the care
professionals within the trust to treat pain of Mrs. Wang in an appropriate and professional
manner. The reason which supports this strategy is that lung cancer patients are likely to
experience pain in their treatments, which might be emotionally and physically distressing for
her as she her in the last stage of her disease. Hence, the professional must be trained effectively
towards understanding the signs of pain and must be well versed with the remedies and
procedures that must be followed to ease the same in an appropriate manner (Slettebø and et. al.,
2017).
 Social Inclusion:
Including Mrs. Wang in a circle with similar patients might result in empowering Mrs.
Wang and protecting her dignity in relation to feel positive about herself. Furthermore, this could
also be used as a strategy to disclose the truth about her condition, as she then might not feel
alone and vulnerable about suffering from lung cancer. In addition to this, proper education must
also be acquired by the nurses and healthcare professionals so that they could understand how to
include patients socially and how best to enhance their inclusion within different social groups
who are suffering the same condition.
QUESTION 3
Examination and Reflection upon personally held values
Gibbs' reflective model is an appropriate theory which is used by an individual to
appropriately reflect upon a past experience or activity, which would be subjected to ensuring
future development within similar situations in the future (Lohne and et. al., 2017).
Hence, as per the case study, this model is elaborated below:
 Description:
Working as a nurse has been quite insightful and contributing towards increasing my
skills and competence within my job role and allowed me to deal with patients with different
problems. As for Mrs. Wang, she is a very nice woman suffering from lung cancer, like several
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other patients I take care of. However, her condition was required to be kept a secret from her as
directed by her family members.
 Feelings:
Initially, while working on this case, I was quite supportive towards the decision of lying
to her about her condition to spare her from pain. However, with time I realised that it would get
worse, which ultimately would subject her towards acknowledging the same. Moreover, I was
quite worried of her condition throughout treating her case as she was very scared and hesitant
towards the medical procedures and the professionals.
 Evaluation:
There are several good as well as bad aspects associated with this experience. For
instance, as for the good part, I got to learn a lot about different medical procedures, along with
ethical principles that are necessary for me to follow to foster my performance in future.
Moreover, another positive aspect was that the whole scenario positively influenced my practice
and thinking, which provided me a clear insight as to how to deal with ethical dilemmas like this
case. However, there were some negative aspects related to it as well. For instance, I faced a lot
of dilemma in not disclosing the condition to Mrs. Wang despite of wanting it. Moreover, there
was one instance where I could not interpret her actions and language as I was not affiliated with
her language in an appropriate manner.
 Analysis and Conclusion:
Through this experience, I realised that such sort of ethical dilemmas must be solved
collectively through counselling and communication. Moreover, it must be mandatory for such
patients to provide her a care network which would be subjected towards her treatment and
improvement in her mindset. In addition, I realised that I must learn new gestures and ways
through which appropriate information could be interpreted and communication could be
established with cross cultural patients.
 Action Plan:
If I experience such a situation in future, I would be taking effective training in regards to
solving ethical dilemmas, as well as communication which would include both the verbal and
non verbal forms to deal with cross cultural patients effectively. For this, training would be
acquired by me to effectively deal with such situations.
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CONCLUSION
Thus, it is concluded from the report above, that the fostering dignity and respect must be
a primal consideration of a healthcare professional and must be subjected towards each and every
patient within the organisation. It is necessary that an understanding is developed of ethical and
moral concepts pertaining to freedom, rights, responsibilities and use of power in care.
Moreover, discussion of effective communication and interpersonal skills, as well as using
strategies related to it allows in understanding as to how dignity and respect, along with
compassion could be provided to the patients. Lastly, examination and reflection upon personally
held values and their impact gives an insight to a person of how could they perform better in this
regard.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Baines, D. and Armstrong, P., 2018. Promising practices in long term care: can work
organisation treat both residents and providers with dignity and respect?. Social Justice,
Practice and Theory. 1(001).
Blanchet-Cohen, N. and Richardson/Kinewesquao, C., 2017. Foreword: fostering cultural safety
across contexts. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples. 13(3).
pp.138-141.
Calloway-Thomas, C., Arasaratnam-Smith, L.A. and Deardorff, D.K., 2017. The role of
empathy in fostering intercultural competence. In Intercultural Competence in Higher
Education (pp. 32-42). Routledge.
Coyne, I., Holmström, I. and Söderbäck, M., 2018. Centeredness in healthcare: a concept
synthesis of family-centered care, person-centered care and child-centered care. Journal
of pediatric nursing. 42. pp.45-56.
Doron, I.I. and Foster, C., 2016. is there a duty to respect “historical” faith? christian proselytism
of an older jewish woman with dementia. Journal of Law and Religion. 31(2). pp.118-
129.
Edmonson, C., Bolick, B. and Lee, J., 2017. A moral imperative for nurse leaders: Addressing
incivility and bullying in health care. Nurse Leader. 15(1). pp.40-44.
Foster, K., and et. al., 2016. Family-focused practice in mental health care: an integrative review.
Child & Youth Services. 37(2). pp.129-155.
Hanna, E. and Robert, G., 2019. Ethics of limb disposal: dignity and the medical waste
Stockpiling scandal. Journal of medical ethics. 45(9). pp.575-578.
Jones, D.A., 2015. Human dignity in healthcare: a virtue ethics approach. The New Bioethics.
21(1). pp.87-97.
Leathard, A. and McLaren, S. eds., 2007. Ethics: contemporary challenges in health and social
care. Policy Press.
Lohne, V., and et. al., 2017. Fostering dignity in the care of nursing home residents through slow
caring. Nursing ethics. 24(7). pp.778-788.
Matiti, M.R., 2015. Learning to promote patient dignity: An inter-professional approach. Nurse
education in practice. 15(2). pp.108-110.
Nunes, S., Rego, G. and Nunes, R., 2015. The impact of economic recession on health‐care and
the contribution by nurses to promote individuals' dignity. Nursing inquiry. 22(4).
pp.285-295.
Slettebø, Å., and et. al., 2017. The significance of meaningful and enjoyable activities for
nursing home resident's experiences of dignity. Scandinavian journal of caring sciences.
31(4). pp.718-726.
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