A Case Study of Stafford Hospital

Introduction

In the mentioned case study regarding Stafford Hospital, there was lack of proper following of ethical principles at work that leads to deliver neglected care due to which within 4 years nearly 400-1200 patients died. The key reasons highlighted which lead to the negligence in care include shortage of staffs, the responsibility of care provided to junior doctors at night, lack of empathy, compassion and morale of healthcare staffs and deduction of £10m for spending in managing activities at the hospital (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk, 2013).

The presence of good reputation for hospitals in the healthcare sector is essential as it offers the organisation to have a credible market position and allows increased number of patients to show intension of accessing care (Suleman et al. 2018). Thus, the good reputation of the hospitals leads them to achieve trust from the patients and have opportunity to provide care to increased number of service users to gain financial benefit. Thus, in this assignment, analysis of the case study regarding performance of the Staffordshire Hospital is to be executed to determine the impact of their unethical behaviour on their reputation along with public confidence, medical staffs and NHS.

Analysis

Impact of Staffordshire Hospital’s unethical behaviour on reputation and whether it should be allowed to operate

The Staffordshire Hospital case leads to the development of moral issue in which the contradictions between the nature of care that is expected from a hospital was compared to the activities that were allowed to be executed at the hospital over 4 years span (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk, 2013). Thus, the report aims to determine the impact the unethical behaviour of the hospital created on the patients, organisation’s reputation, healthcare staffs and the governing body that is the NHS. This is to be done to determine if the hospital is to be allowed to continue its operation.

The reputation of an organisation mentions the opinions or beliefs which are generally existing and held regarding the institution by the consumers (Victoor et al. 2016). Thus, maintaining reputation is important for the organisation to retain positive opinions and beliefs regarding them. As asserted by Lubbe et al. (2019), unethical behaviour affects the organisation’s reputation to be defamed and results them to lose their credibility of services in the industry of operation. This is because the unethical behaviour leads the organisation show they are not to be trusted by the consumers as well as they are inconsistent and lack loyalty towards their consumers in delivering services. This indicates that the unethical behaviour of the Staffordshire Hospital would impact their reputation to be lowered in the healthcare industry as well as show they are not to be trusted. As argued by Ogol and Moronge (2017), health organisation with low reputation have the ability to harm the patient’s health which could lead to increased fatalities. This is because they do offer genuine and properly managed care services. Thus, Staffordshire Hospital may not be allowed to operate in the healthcare field as allowing them to deliver services would lead to increased deteriorated health of the patients and fatalities, in turn, hindering the growth of improved healthcare environment.

The poor reputation as an impact of unethical activities of the organisation leads them to lack productivity. This is because lower reputation leads employees to feel lack of value and morale to work effectively for the organisation which in turn lowers the productivity of the organisation (Vijayalakshmi and Supriya, 2016). It is evident as the reduced reputation of the Staffordshire Hospital lead the nursing and healthcare staffs lack the zeal and positive morale to offer improved care to the patients as they felt lack of motivation to meet deadlines at work or create innovative effort. As criticised by Shadnam et al. (2018), low morale within the healthcare organisation leads to create increase error in care which in turn increases hospital readmission rates along with deteriorating health of patients. Thus, unethical behaviour of Staffordshire Hospital that lowered their reputation may not be allowed to continue their operation as it would hinder the health of the patients making them suffer more instead of recovering from their health conditions.

Impact of Staffordshire Hospital’s unethical behaviour on public confidence and whether it should be allowed to operate

The unethical behaviour of healthcare organisation lowers the public confidence in availing care services from the institution (Odusanya et al. 2018). This is because the public doubts and fears the competency of the healthcare organisation in offering them required care to resolve their health issues. In case of Staffordshire Hospital, it is seen that with their increased unethical behaviour the public confidence of their ability to deliver effective care reduced and many families withdrew their ailing family members from the institution to be treated in other hospitals (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk, 2013). The unethical behaviour expressed by the healthcare institutions impact the public opinion to consider the organisations lack sanity and sincerity of delivering quality care to the service users by considering value and self-esteem of the patients (Jawaid, 2016). In this condition, Staffordshire Hospital may not be allowed to continue their operation as the public opinion regards them to be disrespectful towards the ailing patients. The lack of value and respect of self-esteem to the patients makes them feel demotivated to accept care or provide proper response towards the intervention to show improvement in their health (Gentina et al. 2018). Thus, Staffordshire Hospital based on public consideration may not be allowed to operate services as it would lead to create intentional harm and lower health condition for the patients.

Impact of Staffordshire Hospital’s unethical behaviour on medical staff and whether it should be allowed to operate

The unethical behaviour within the healthcare organisation impacts the medical staffs to deliver improper care to the patients as the employees work without following any rules and regulations of their profession code (Friesen, 2018). This is because unethical behaviour promotes the employees to feel lack of morale and fear of punishment to work in a proper way by following code of ethics. It is evident as in case of Staffordshire Hospital, the unethical environment made the nursing staffs feel lack of motivation to deliver proper care to the patients as well as no fear of punishment while delivering irresponsible care to the patients (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk, 2013). As asserted by Kingori and Gerrets (2016), healthcare staffs with lack of morale may cause harm or abuse towards the service users. This is because they do not have zeal to deliver innovative and quality care to the patients. Thus, the Staffordshire Hospital due to their unethical behaviour may not be allowed to operate in the healthcare industry as it would allow the healthcare staffs of the organisation has opportunity to harm or abuse the patients, in turn, contributing to deteriorate their health condition

The unethical behaviour in healthcare environment impacts on the medical staff to avoid whistleblowing which results the illegal and inappropriate incidences occurring within the organisation to remain unreported and unattended (Ishola and Oluwole, 2019). This creates a caring environment where no proper actions to control the improper care incidences are taken in turn making patients suffer from the inappropriate care leading to their deteriorating their health condition. It is evident as in Staffordshire Hospital; the unethical care environment led the medical staffs to remain irresponsible and unaware of reporting issues of lack of proper food deliver, low hygiene and inappropriate care by inexperienced staffs leading the patients to face deteriorated health and increased fatalities (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk, 2013). Thus, the Staffordshire Hospital may not be allowed to operate care as it would lead to deteriorate care services to be delivered to patients that have no scope for improvement making the patients suffer pain and fatalities. As criticised by Cherabie et al. (2018), unethical behaviour in the healthcare environment impact on the medical staffs to create discrimination in care. This results few of the patients with increased advantage to get proper care whereas other patients without any advantage to suffer and die leading to the violation of equality laws of care. Thus, Staffordshire Hospital may not be allowed to operate in the healthcare industry as it would create health gap between the people with advantage and without advantage in the society making unequal care to be established that disrupts the overall care environment of the nation.

Impact of unethical behaviour on NHS and whether Staffordshire Hospital should be allowed to operate

The impact of unethical behaviour of Staffordshire Hospital on the NHS would be that the public would lose trust towards the efficiency of the national healthcare to provide protection and quality healthcare (nhs.uk, 2013). This would lead to create a chaotic healthcare environment where the people of higher social class would try and avail private healthcare to avail quality support whereas the poor class to suffer deteriorated healthcare by avoiding to avail NHS and not having economic ability to use private healthcare services for improved health (nhs.uk, 2013). The unethical behaviour would impact the NHS to lose retention of experienced healthcare staffs to deliver care to the service users. This is because unethical environment instigates the experienced professional feel low morale and lack of belief to use their skills in appropriate manner to deliver proper care to the patients while working under NHS (nhs.uk, 2013). Thus, based on the unethical behaviour of Staffordshire Hospital and its impact on the NHS the hospital should not be allowed to operate the services as it would lead many experienced healthcare staffs to turnover from working for the NHS and the hospital. This would be done out of consideration that they are executing care that is against the norms of their profession.

Conclusion

The case study of Staffordshire Hospital informed that due to negligence of care and management of improper services the hospital lead to 400-1200 death of patients in between January 2005- March 2009 that is 4 years of gap. The unethical behaviour in the hospital leads to its lower reputation that impacted them to lose credibility of providing services making patients and public lose faith or trust in the organisation to avail care. The low reputed hospital should not be allowed operation as they promote increased fatalities and creates probability of deteriorated health condition of patients. The unethical behaviour of Staffordshire Hospital impacted the public opinion to develop fear of accessing care from the institution as they feel the patients would be disrespected, not valued, needs would not be fulfilled and others. Thus, in context of the public opinion, the hospital should not be allowed to operate as it would promote intention harm to the patients. The unethical environment would impact medical staffs to harm the patients or bully them whereas this environment would impact NHS to ability to maintain equal care and retain experienced staffs. This is because the experienced healthcare staffs out of frustration may leave the NHS and the hospital.

Recommendations

On the basis of the analysis, few recommendations are provided to Staffordshire Hospital that is to be followed which includes:

Promote Whistleblowing: The Staffordshire Hospital is to implement whistleblowing policy in the healthcare environment so that it allows the medical staffs to report their views and opinions regarding unethical and inappropriate incidences occurring within the organisation. This is because it would lead the management to be aware regarding which aspects and where in the healthcare environment problems are faced and changes are to be made to ensure quality care delivery to the service users (Kusu-Orkar et al. 2019).

Training and Development of Medical Staffs: The training and development of existing medical staffs in Staffordshire Hospital are required to inform them about the way policy guidelines and legislations are to be followed to deliver quality and unhindered care to the service users. In addition, training would lead to improve the existing skills and knowledge of the staffs regarding the way care services are provided making them deliver innovative support and appropriate care for improving the health of the patients (Chaghari et al. 2017).

Increase morale of medical staff: The morale of the medical staff in Staffordshire Hospital is to be improved so that they feel the zeal to provide increased effort in delivering right care services for the service users. In addition, improved morale of the medical staffs would make them increase service productivity of the hospital as well as ensure the issue of turnover of staffs is resolved (Ballard and Lourens, 2016). This is required as retention of the experienced staffs through building of high morale would ensure quality care to be provided to patients to ensure better healthcare results for them.

References

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk 2013, Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry, Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/279124/0947.pdf [Accessed on: 28th February 2020]

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