Ethics and Values

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Introduction

The purpose of writing this report is to determine the ethics and values in ethics and social care.

Scenario 1 states that” A member of staff refused to clean the room inhabited by a gay man,

claiming it is against their religion”. Scenario 2 defines “elderly client who has worked in different

countries right from the 1950s and 1980s abuses black and Asian staff”. These two scenarios are

portrayed in nursing home settings. Nursing home is the place for people who don’t want to be in

hospital but can’t be cared at home. Some nursing homes are set up like a health care or hospital.

The staff offers medical care to the patients. In these scenarios, the discrimination has been

revealed. These issues must be avoided by the society and people should take participate in the

social care. In order to be involved in social care, the social workers need a specific qualification

with the UK regulatory norms. These scenarios are portrayed in nursing home settings and

explained in this report. The social care workers should practice the rules proposed by UK national

occupational standards for social work and should be organized by the code of practice. It is

essential to focus on values and determine what they are looking for. This scenario is highly

focused and an essential requirement for UK social and health care industry.

Explaining the scenarios:

By considering these scenarios with nursing home settings, the report will illustrated the

discrimination against the black and Asian staff and gay man in the health care irrespective of race

and religion. By taking scenario 1, it has been assumed that the elderly doctor who has worked in

different countries abuses the black and Asian nurses/patients in the health care industry.

Discrimination defines treating a person unfairly because they possess different characteristics.

Here, elderly client treated Asian and Black staff unfairly because they are from different cultural

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background. Scenario 2 has been assumed that office boy in a nursing home refused to clean room

as he is inhabited by a gay man. It clearly states that discrimination and oppressive behaviour

exists. Office boy has been treated unfairly as he comes from different religion. Scenario 3 states

that “A manager from head office has complained about untidiness in the staff areas and claims it

is indicative of poor care”. It indicates that staff claiming about poor care of patients in the nursing

home. Scenario 4 states that ‘Two co-workers were overhead debating what to do in relation to

two cultural issues like beating children, because if you ‘spare the rod you spoil the child’ and

letting lonely old people with dementia die as it will save money as they will die anyway”. It

reveals that people from two different cultures have different practice and approach to follow. One

claimed that beating children is good to avoid them from unevil issues and another state that we

need to leave them and give a chance to realize their mistakes. The reasons for abusing black and

Asian staff, refusing gay man and claiming about untidiness in nursing home are lack of

interpersonal communication, ethnicity, religion, and race, and language, lack of cultural

sensitivity. Hence these factors lead to intercultural miscommunication or culture difference exists

between people from different religious and cultural background.

Personal ethics and values

Over twenty years, UK has become diverse ethnically. Refusing gay man in nursing home is

completely unethical as they belongs to the society. Also maintaining cleanliness in the nursing

home is significant to avoid poor care. A large number of Asian and black people from this

ethnicity group is notable. In the health care, families and patients from this black and Asian group

are highly encouraged to make interaction with other people. To prove the white people

dominating black staff, the evidence of the study reveals that black people earn less than 37 percent

than white in UK (Crerar, 2018).

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Personal ethics comprise of values like honesty, caring and fairness. There are some factors which

influence the development of personal ethics and values held by the individuals. They are as

follows,

Knowledge

Knowledge is the significant which affects the individual ethical behaviour. Without knowledge,

no one acts wisely in their activities and goals. In health care, trained and knowledgeable nurses

can able to know how to handle the patients. A decision maker with effective knowledge can able

to avoid ethical issues. Intelligence can be improved with hard work, motivation and proper

environment. It is an acquired trait which influences the behaviour of the individual. An intelligent

person is considered as predictable and stable.

Values

Values are the individual’s standard behaviour. If people act in an improper way, the behaviour is

called as unethical behaviour. In the nursing home, the doctors mistreated the patients and the

patients become aggressive. Suppose if the elderly patient abuses black and Asian staff, they

should know their values of professions and the way they treated them. Some staff tolerate those

hurts because of reputation and image of nursing home.

Morale

Morale is the feature which affects the personal ethics. In the UK, the emergence of racist attitudes

is increased in the health care and nursing home. The increased racist attitudes exist in the difficult

atmosphere of NHS. Low morale and dissatisfied patients become aggressive in the health care

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services. So it is significant to enhance morale value which does not affect the organization and

others.

Personal goals

Ethical work situations will influence the personal goals. If the person goals are focused on wealth

and no matter what the outcomes, then they might act unethically. Personal goals should be clear

and ethical (Hernandez and Kose, 2011). Similarly, if the health care focused on wealth and do not

matter about the racism and discrimination, then they might face uncontrolled challenges in future.

They should act ethically.

Personality

The personality of the employee plays a significant role in evaluating ethical behaviour. A person

who likes to take the risk has a high chance of unethical conduct at work. Personality also referred

as personal traits namely persistence, aggressiveness, dominance and leadership which influence

the person behaviour. Intelligence is personality trait which is biological in nature but open

mindedness, patience must be learned.

Attitude:

If the individual has a positive attitude about his/her work, then it will reflect by less turnover and

absenteeism, good performance and obedience towards the authority. If he has a negative attitude,

then he will act in opposite way. This can be changed by coaching or training. If the elderly patients

mistreat the staff, then the patients should need a counselling.

Race and culture:

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Race and culture are the significant factors which affect the society and workplace. The individual

culture and race will affect the individual behaviour (Kashyap, 2016). The elderly white people‘s

culture would affect the black and Asian staff. The reason for refusing gay man to clean the room

is for religion aspects.

The above all the factors are the significant for the development of personal ethics and values and

related to discrimination factors. The individuals should aware of these factors and act wisely at

the society and workplace.

Resolving situations:

According to the report revealed by Health and Social Care information Centre, there is about

55000 of 1.2 million staff in NHS is the citizen of EU countries (Johnson, 2016). They are working

in the different roles like doctors, pharmacists, nurses, admin staff and support workers. Because

of UK decisions, many people prepared themselves to leave the place. Few paramedic people

saying that they feel unsafe and facing lot of racial abuse from patients as well as the public. This

is the present situations in the UK. The elderly patients abuse the black and Asian staff adversely

even they have treated them well. The negative stereotypes have increased and caused adverse

effects on the mental health of black people. The contemporary negative treatments lead to mistrust

and many of them are not having the interest in black staff.

The professionals like nurses and doctors should aware of the cultural sensitivity for interpersonal

communication. Lack of cultural sensitivity made elderly people abuse black and Asian staff,

refusing gay man to clean the room. Poor cultural sensitivity may leads to discrimination.

Inadequate knowledge of care leads to untidiness. In order to solve this situation, there are some

guidelines helps to enhance the cultural sensitivity. They are as follows,

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  Go through carefully for culturally influenced behaviours in the organization.

 Determine and manage individual’s own fears and act inappropriately towards people from

different cultures

 Aware of difference between people from other cultures and yourself

 You should aware of cultural rules and customs of clients (Bennett, 1986).

Individualism and collectivism represent the performance of the individuals. Some organizations

evaluate the performance of the team. The UK has a low level of uncertainty avoidance which

represents that they like to accept the low risk. Low power distance would indicate the national

culture focus on autonomy and personal responsibility (Trompenaars, and Turner, 2011).

Indulgence and restraint have a high score because the national culture has strict social norms.

These cultural indicators are used to determine the level of national culture.

Conclusion:

This report clearly indicates the issues exist in nursing home settings can be resolved by conducting

programs and taking some initiatives. Inadequate knowledge of cultural differences and lack of

cultural sensitivity are the significant reasons for these issues. These can be avoided by enhancing

the cultural sensitivity.

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References

Bennett, M. (1986). A developmental approach to training for intercultural

sensitivity. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 10(2), pp.179-196.
Crerar, P (2018). Black and Asian workers paid up to 37% less than the white staff at City Hall.
[online] Evening Standard. Available at: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/mayor/black-
and-asian-workers-paid-up-to-37-less-than-white-staff-at-city-hall-a3779811.html
[Accessed 15 Apr. 2018].
Hernandez, F. and Kose, B. (2011). The Developmental Model of Intercultural
Sensitivity. Education and Urban Society, 44(4), pp.512-530.
Johnson, S. (2016). EU workers in the NHS: 'I've faced racial abuse and will head home'.
[online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-
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2018].
Kashyap. D (2016). Top 3 Factors Affecting Individual Behaviour. [online] Your Article Library.
Available at: http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/organization/individual-behaviors/top-3-
factors-affecting-individual-behaviour/63786 [Accessed 15 Apr. 2018].
Trompenaars, F. and Turner, C. (2011). Riding the waves of culture. London: Brealey.