Law and Ethics in Health and Social Care Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Law and Ethics in Health and Social Care - Essay Example The National Health Service in the UK employs 300,000 nurses approximately, making them the largest group of health professionals (Department of Health 2000).Ethics is an important feature in nurse education in the UK with ethical and professional practice being established by the regulatory body namely the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) which is an organization set up by the Parliament; their sole aim is to protect the public by ensuring that they provide high standards of care to their clients and patients. Hence it is a requirement that nurses need to ensure effective participation in ethical decision making arising from their practice. The advantage of learning and teaching ethics is the basic question in an underlying discussion of whether there is a separate subject in nursing ethics. For example, Milton (2004) describes nursing ethics as a theme that has "has philosophical underpinnings embedded within the discipline's nursing theoretical perspectives" (p309) Fry and Veach (2000) regard it to be part of a larger general system of bioethics.Allmark suggests that the various uncertainties which lie in the areas of nursing and education determine the manner in which ethics is taught. "In nursing there are uncertainties about whether we are teaching ethics to professionalise, or because we are a profession. Also about whether there is something which is uniquely nursing ethics. In ethics there are competing paradigms of ethical theory and competing theories of moral development. In education there are competing epistemologies, theories of learning and models of curriculum planning." (Allmark 1995 p377) According to Yumiko (2005), ethical dilemmas are "situations where moral requirements conflict, and neither requirement is overridden." The population of Scotland sees a decline of 5.11 million to fewer than 5 million (GROS 2002) announcing significant challenges for the National Health Service Scotland. The reasons range from an aging population to a shrinking tax fund as well as increasing workloads for the working age population (Duncan 2002).The NHS already experiences staff shortages which is significantly acute in nursing, a work force which is itself "graying" (Buchan 1998; 1999).The year 2000 saw almost 21,000 nurses leaving the nursing register. It left a huge vacancy of 9,200 in number (Watson et al, 2003).The NHS Improving Working Lives (DoH 2000) investigates the cause behind this predicament which is widespread in all of UK,in an effort to tackle this recruitment and retention crisis. This initiative aims at increasing labour market competitiveness, increased productivit y, retention rates, improved morale and reduced absences. It looks at flexible working arrangements such as part time working and annualized hours. Meadows et al (2000) points out that "In terms of pay and career structure, the current grading clinical grading system is instrumental in nurses' dissatisfaction with skills, workloads and responsibilities often going unrecognized."But the evident and the ever-expanding responsibilities of the ones on the higher rungs should also not go unnoticed. It is important to understand the changing role of Senior Nurses and Ward Managers and their ability or inability to come to a rational decision while faced with an ethical dilemma under such circumstances. They are responsible for the day to day running of