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This chapter looks at ethics and interprofessional care. It reviews the four ethical principles of beneficence, confidentiality, accountability, and collaborative governance, in the light of the rising importance of collaborative governance in working together across health and social care, termed interprofessional care. Care trusts also come under focus, where structurally some 32 local health and social care services have amalgamated into joint trusts. Collaborative governance is shown to have played a significant part in the context of joint provision across the services involved. However, while the term ‘partnership working’ has increasingly come to the fore in this context, a key ethical issue is that partnerships must ensure that the arrangements benefit users.
This chapter identifies contrasting findings from partnership evaluations, including a more efficient use of staff resources, better service provision, and a more satisfying working environment, although these are countered by frustration with the slowness of procedures and a lack of economies of scale. It examines some of the political issues surrounding interagency evaluation, noting in particular the deep structural divide between health and social care, the place of private-public concordats, the problematic definition of boundaries, and funding issues. It then links these issues to the policy arena with its rapidly changing legislation and guidance and endless reorganisations. It concludes that the extent of evaluation in this context has been limited and that, where evaluations have been completed, little appears to have taken place in response to their findings.
While ethics has been addressed in the health care literature, relatively little attention has been paid to the subject in the field of social care. This book redresses the balance by examining theory, research, policy and practice in both fields.
The analysis is set within the context of contemporary challenges facing health and social care, not only in Britain but internationally. Contributors from the UK, US and Australia consider ethical issues in health and social care research and governance; interprofessional and user perspectives; ethics in relation to human rights, the law, finance, management and provision; key issues of relevance to vulnerable groups such as children and young people, those with complex disabilities, older people and those with mental health problems and lifecourse issues - ethical perspectives on a range of challenging areas from new technologies of reproduction to euthanasia.
This book is intended for academics, students and researchers in health and social care who need an up-to-date analysis of contemporary issues and debates. It will also be useful to practitioners in the public, private and voluntary sectors, including social workers, community workers, those working in the fields of disability and mental health and with older people.
The aim of this book is to show the importance of ethics in health and social care. The emphasis in both arenas of care is significant as, up to now, ethical issues have tended to focus on either health or social care separately. This introductory chapter begins by briefly setting out definitions of ethics, followed by a policy overview to illustrate the increasing impact of ethics overall that has led to ever more media coverage. Summaries of the chosen topic areas are then set out, in which three key arenas have been assembled for discussion. The main themes selected are ethics – research and provision in health and social care together with service users’ perspectives; followed by law, management, and ethics in health and social care; with the final section on ethics – from the start of life to the end.
This concluding chapter offers a summary of interrelated themes and ethical challenges that have emerged across the previous chapters. A review of the content identifies five broad, emergent themes, the first of which explores ethical decision making utilising principles, models, professional codes, and dialogue ethics in collaborative working across organisational boundaries and systems. A second theme, user–professional relationships and roles in the context of decision making, is focused on therapeutic relationships and virtuous practice; best interests; refusing treatment, and end-of-life decisions; equity; resources; and provider, professional, and user relationships. A third theme, vulnerable people, summarises the challenges that can arise in charging vulnerable older adults for their care, vulnerability to loss of personhood, protecting the claims and entitlements of future people, child protection, and protecting rights and welfare in research participation. The theme of service users summarises the case for ethical involvement of users in health and social care, and explores the benefits of services working together in relation to user involvement and outcomes. A final theme of governance and accountability links new forms of collaborative governance and their ethical justification, summarising current conflicts and challenges for governance frameworks in general, and, more specifically, in relation to research.
While ethics has been addressed in the health care literature, relatively little attention has been paid to the subject in the field of social care. This book redresses the balance by examining theory, research, policy, and practice in both fields. The analysis is set within the context of contemporary challenges facing health and social care, not only in Britain but internationally. Contributors from the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia consider ethical issues in health and social care research and governance; inter-professional and user perspectives; ethics in relation to human rights, the law, finance, management, and provision; key issues of relevance to vulnerable groups such as children and young people; those with complex disabilities, older people, and those with mental health problems; and lifecourse issues – ethical perspectives on a range of challenging areas from new technologies of reproduction to euthanasia.
While ethics has been addressed in the health care literature, relatively little attention has been paid to the subject in the field of social care. This book redresses the balance by examining theory, research, policy, and practice in both fields. The analysis is set within the context of contemporary challenges facing health and social care, not only in Britain but internationally. Contributors from the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia consider ethical issues in health and social care research and governance; inter-professional and user perspectives; ethics in relation to human rights, the law, finance, management, and provision; key issues of relevance to vulnerable groups such as children and young people; those with complex disabilities, older people, and those with mental health problems; and lifecourse issues – ethical perspectives on a range of challenging areas from new technologies of reproduction to euthanasia.
While ethics has been addressed in the health care literature, relatively little attention has been paid to the subject in the field of social care. This book redresses the balance by examining theory, research, policy, and practice in both fields. The analysis is set within the context of contemporary challenges facing health and social care, not only in Britain but internationally. Contributors from the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia consider ethical issues in health and social care research and governance; inter-professional and user perspectives; ethics in relation to human rights, the law, finance, management, and provision; key issues of relevance to vulnerable groups such as children and young people; those with complex disabilities, older people, and those with mental health problems; and lifecourse issues – ethical perspectives on a range of challenging areas from new technologies of reproduction to euthanasia.
