Existing Relevant Regulation - Assignment Example

Task 1 The first case is that of a doctor who was suspended for negligence in the case of death of two patients. However the case has since expired and the doctor has returned to duty. Stakeholders in the case The stakeholders in this case include the doctor, the hospital, and the patients that would come under his care. Existing relevant regulation The case falls under the purview of UK clinical negligence law and compensation claims, where negligence is taken as any act or omission deviating from the standards set by competent authorities and to be fulfilled by "the reasonable man," referring here to the doctor. In cases as this it is important to establish whether or not the duty of care was owed by the defendant to the claimant, and if the defendant did, was there any breach of that duty (Department of Health, UK). That brings the case under the tort law of negligence (Peter de Cruz, 2001). A central principle of justice in law is that if one person injures another without legal justification or excuse, the first should put the matter right with the injured party, (Honore, 1995). Putting the matter right might require the harm-doer to restore something to the person harmed, or repair a damaged object, or when the unharmed position cannot be restored, to compensate the sufferer. This essentially is a matter of corrective justice. It is largely concerned with the implementation of corrective justice in civil law cases. As opposed to criminal cases where the state is usually a plaintiff, in most such tort cases both the plaintiff and the defendants are civilians (Cranor, 2006).  Possible ways to solve this issue With the evolution in the manner of treatments provided and the nature of problems to be treated there is a growing dilemma where the ethics and laws of the medical professional are concerned (Johnstone, 2004). These have become more and more complicated in the light of the fact that much of the issues that are at stake in this context are subjective and there can never be one correct universally suited answer. Ethics in the context of medicine as elsewhere are distinct from legalities and law but given the special nature of the profession and the importance of healthy and ethical medicine practice, law and ethics have an overlapping relationship. So while moral right or wrong is distinct from a legal right or wrong, and while decision making requires consideration of law, morality of law have been questioned time and time again. Ethically, a doctor is to value strategies aimed at preventing, minimizing, and overcoming the harmful effects of economic, social or ecological factors on the health of individuals and communities (Cody, 2003). This would mean in turn that that through a process of tact and diplomacy, tolerance and rehability, they are supposed to demonstrate their depth of purpose and understanding.   In the context of this case therefore, the important thing is to remember the nature of the case and the dismissal which affected the deaths in the last instance. If there was a serious problem of negligence on the part of the doctor, then it is ethically wrong for him to be allowed to practice medicine again. Also in the context of medicine the overarching principle is that of the ethics perpetrated by the Hippocratic Oath, under which all doctors are supposed to keep the health of their patients as priority. If the doctor has been found to be guilty on these charges, then it would be correct to limit him from practicing medicine in the future again. Task 2 Criticisms of the way in which police exercise their authority are neither new nor uncommon. Police are entrusted with considerable formal (de jure) and physical (de facto) power and that power may be drawn upon in circumstances that are both complex and pressing (Kleinig, 1996). It is not surprising, therefore, that their decisions should attract public examination and even disapproval. Stakeholders in this case In this case, the stakeholders are the police, the victim of the police violence, the law which is supposed to regulate the role of police in the community and the larger community as a whole. Manning (1977) suggests that British policing is identical to legal monopoly on violence and is protected to the point of legal sanctioning for the use of fatal force. This is debatable given especially the fact that the police in Britain do not have a legal monopoly of violence. They are just supposed to have greater legal powers than ordinary citizens but anyone is entitled to use violence in certain circumstances for self defense (Belur, 2010). Also they are not necessarily protected for use of fatal force but their immunity is dependent on the circumstances surrounding the particular incident (Belur, 2010). Existing relevant regulation Specific laws exist in UK on police misconduct. These regulations have been comprehensively cited in law relating to police misconduct within Part 36 of the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR). Equality Act (EqA) 2010, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) and as well articles 2 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (‘the convention’). It was on October 01, 2010 that the key provisions of EqA came into force and according to the same harassment, discrimination, and victimisation are all unlawful forms of conduct in respect of the exercise of public functions (Equality Act, 2010). Possible ways to solve this issue In the case, the two ways of solving the case would be to take the two approaches of deontology and teleology. Deontology is literally, the study of the duties that people have toward one another. Thus, deontological ethics is often also known as duty based ethics, having its basic citing in the notion of “what one ought to do”. This is representative of a thought that is familiar to us all. This approach to ethics refers to matters of both individual morality and public policy, emphasizing the fact that sometimes the correct path is decided, not by consequences but by duties. These are similar to the concepts of obligations, commitments and responsibilities. The approach faults utilitarianism for thinking that our acts should always be judged by their consequences to the overall good. Deontology denies the utilitarian belief that the ends do justify the means. It holds that there are some things that we should, or should not do, regardless of the consequences (Desjardins, 2009). Going by this logic, the police’s end does not justify the means of bashing up someone.   A teleological approach would be understood as an account rooted in philosophy which is a proponent of the theory that the final causes exist in nature. This means that the manner of thought and action that defines the human nature is to have its roots in the analogous inherent nature. The word itself has its roots in the Greek word telos, which means “end, purpose”. The two types of final causes that the theory talks about are the intrinsic finality and extrinsic finality (Brooks and Dunn, 2009). Even going by this logic, the problem is that the criminal had already been apprehended and hence there can be no justification for the violence, in which case, the police is morally liable for damage to public property. Task 3 Social media has become a global phenomenon and it I going up on popularity charts every other day. Notable few, though not limited to, of these are Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and from time to time all of them have either quoted controversy or made waves, thus shrouding them into several ethical issues. In all cases, though, benefits have been shown to outweigh disadvantages (Hung and Cartagena, 2011). The ethical issue that I will be looking at is blocking of access to social media sites from within the healthcare organization that I work with. Recently there has been a paradigm shift in many organization, triggered by legislations in many jurisdictions, that employees must be given freedom to network on social media sites while at work; even though that means giving them discreet, reasonable and incidental access to the same. Those who are in favour of the access to social media network opine that blocking the same actually means preventing one from being “social”, an act that is by no means illegal (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2010). The opinion goes to the extent that disadvantages and risks of not being on social media are far greater than advantages it can offer; when a user (in this case, for example, hospital staff member) is on a social network, he doesn’t only showcase himself but also, directly or indirectly, showcases the organization too. The benefit for the user is to simply socialize but for the organization is to gain more access to individuals and organization that would be otherwise off limits under normal circumstances. It is understood that privacy could be an issue in this regard, particularly since the hospital data can, advertently or inadvertently, get posted on any of the social media networks for public to see thus compromising the position of the hospital but the staff, caregivers or even patients can be cautioned against any such action by explicitly communicating to them how detrimental it could be for all if any such thing goes away from a guarded domain to a public one (Mitrano, 2006). On the other hand popular social media sites are also doing their bit to safeguard this sort of data transmission by making sure that their users follow their rules and regulations that prevent access of third-party information by anyone who, actually, is not even remotely related to the information being displayed. This is done to make sure that no one’s individual identifying information is violated (Wagstaff, 2011). I feel the organizations that I work with should take an initiative in advising staff, patients, and caregivers exercise a responsible behavior in making a filtration on what they are going to and should not post. Should the organization wish, post that users, particularly staff, that are uploaded on social networks, it can use the same for quality improvement purposes. Arguably, the organization must not prevent staff from accessing social media networks; instead it can join hands with them and chart out a plan that outlines how the permissible hospital data can be used in order to provide the organization further impetus for growth. Staff, when posting information that is person-specific, can anonymize the information, particularly when it pertains to patient data. References: Brooks, L.J., and Dunn P., (2009). Business & Professional Ethics for Directors, Executives & Accountants. Cengage Learning. p.149.  Belur, J., (2010). Permission to Shoot?: Police Use of Deadly Force in Democracies. Springer. Pp3-5 Cranor F C, Toxic torts: science, law, and the possibility of justice, Published by Cambridge University Press, p3-6  Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2010). Mr. Personality, A personality expert talks character and destiny. Psychology Today, Online at http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mr-personality/201001/the-psychology-social-networking Cody, W. K. (2003), Paternalism in Nursing and Healthcare: Central Issues and their Relation to Theory, pub, Nursing Science Quarterly, Vol.16 No.4, pp. 288-296 Department of Health, NHS indemnity arrangements for handling clinical negligence claims against NHS staff (hereafter NHS indemnity arrangements), HSG (96)48, 1996, http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsand statistics/Lettersandcirculars/Healthserviceguidelines/DH_4018270; and PETER DE CRUZ, supra note 1, at 234. Desjardins, (2009). An Into To Business Ethics 2E. Tata McGraw Hill. p38 Equality Act, (2010). Key changes to discrimination law. Online at http://www.ibblaw.co.uk/downloads/brochures/2010-12-23-14-33-54-equality%20act%202010.pdf Honore T, 1995, ‘The Morality of Tort Law, Questions and Answers’ in ‘Philosophical Foundations of Tort Law, ed. Owen D, pub. Oxford Clarendon Press, p79.   Hung, R. and Cartagena, R.G.. (2011). ANALYSIS: Social Media, Advertising And Marketing, Customer Relationship Management Databases And Online Privacy: Tips For Compliance With Canadian LawJuly 15, 2011 in World Data Protection Report Johnstone, M. 2004, Leadership ethics in nursing and health care domains. In Daly, J., Speedy, S. and Jackson, D. (eds), Nursing Leadership. Pub, Churchill Livingstone: Sydney  Kleinig, J., (1996). Handled with discretion: ethical issues in police decision making. Rowman & Littlefield. Pp1-2 Mitrano, T. (2006). "Thoughts on Facebook,"(Cornell University, Office of Information Technologies, IT Policy Office), Online at http://www.cit.cornell.edu/policy/memos/facebook.html. Peter de Cruz, Comparative Healthcare Law, 234 (2001), referring to Pfizer Corp. v. Ministry of Health [1965] AC 512 (HL). Wagstaff, K. (2011). Facebook Announces New ‘Trusted Friends’ Security Feature, Time Techland, Online at http://techland.time.com/2011/10/28/facebook-announces-new-trusted-friends-security-feature/ Read More