Business Ethics is a study of business practices and policies regarding some of the controversial issues such as discrimination, insider trading, corporate social responsibility, and bribery and so on (Rapodar.ac.in, 2018). Medical practice is an area where business ethics needs to follow very effectively as it consists of the health of many people. Recently it has come to know that medical practitioners are involved in unethical practices such as paid promotions and receiving gifts from drug companies. The national health service of England has put the ban on staff receiving gifts worth more than £50 (Donnelly, 2018a). When a medical practitioner recommends the drugs under influence of gifts and other monetary benefits, many of the issues come out of such situation. In the presented report, such issues will be addressed in addition to the solution thereof. The report is addressed to the senior management of NHS trust, an organization responsible to run a group of hospitals in the locality.
There are always some chances of happing unethical practices whenever a doctor or medical practitioner is allowed to be in direct contact with drug suppliers. The lead ethical issue involved in this practice is that such suppliers give bribery to doctors in the forms of cash, gifts, and other facilities and in consideration, doctors recommend their products to hospitals. In this practice, many of the times, doctors do recommend low-quality drugs, which further affect the health of many patients. This is a significant ethical issue because of several reasons. The patient does trust on the drugs provided by hospitals and in the same manner, the hospital takes the advice of doctors before purchasing drugs to serve the patients.
In conjunction with this, medical practitioners are communities that are well known to save the life of patients. If they would be engaged in unfair practices, to whom the patients will do believe. A single selfish decision of doctors can put the life of a patient in danger and create many issues for the family members of the patients. Apart from the health of a patient, this practice is not as ethical as the same consist the factor of bribe. Drug companies who make good medicine cannot be stable into the market because of other competitors who lead unethical practices. It spoils the market for the companies who develop good drugs and follow practices of corporate governance. As stated earlier that an ethics is a set of principles that lead good practice and therefore receiving gifts and recommending low-quality drugs to hospitals cannot be considered ethical practices. NHS has developed a new policy under which the same banned to doctors and medical practitioners by receiving any gift or amount worth more than £50 because the unethical practices were increasing day by day (Donnelly, 2018b).
In every organization, the senior manager is responsible to take the decisions and to develop the plans and policies (Referenceforbusiness.com, 2018). Ethical choices are the alternatives before senior managers that provide options such as what to do and what not to? (Blink.ucsd.edu, 2018). Where good and ethical choice provides many of the advantages to the business, unethical choice lead out the dangerous result. If to talk about the benefits of making a good choice, this is to be stated that good and ethical choices, firstly bring economic advancement to the organizations. Trust of people gets develop into companies and in such a manner they invest more and more to the same. In addition to the economic advantages, the other benefit is employee growth. Employees of a company that follows good practices remain happier (McNamara, 2010). Goodwill of an organization is an intangible and valuable asset that gets developed when a company chooses good business practices.
Moving the focus towards the impact of bad ethical choices, this would not be wrongful to state that bad choices and decisions of senior manager prove a danger for the financial condition as well as the reputation of the company. An organization that makes bad choices cannot be successful in the long term.
While taking the business decisions senior managers consider some of the ethical theories. Milton Friedman has provided one of the approaches of business that is in support of shareholder theory (Friedman, 2009). According to this approach, business is there to make a profit and the same only needs to consider the interest of shareholders. As per the arguments of Friedman, business should not make their focus to social responsibility (Mayer, 2018). If to apply this theory to the given case, the same will lead out the ethical issues. According to the approach of shareholder theory, management of the trust will only make the focus on profits which will not be in favor of patient’s health. However, by providing the low-quality drugs to a patient, profit of the trust will enhance and the doctors would also be personally benefited, yet there would be many of disadvantages. The biggest disadvantage that trust can face is a loss of faith of customers, further, goodwill of the trust will also be diminished.
Many of the Stakeholders will be affected by the decision of trust. In the year 2015, a New York-based company named Turing Pharmaceuticals has made some unethical choices in the medical industry by increasing the prices of lifesaving drugs by 5000% (Lorenzetti, 2015). By this decision of the company, many of the stakeholders such as patients, shareholders, and the whole medical industry has been affected negatively. These stakeholders of NHS trust would also be affected in a negative manner if the trust would let the doctors recommending cheap and bad drugs.
Being a controller of a group of hospital, NHS Trust is advised to develop the policies that would prevent the unethical practices in the hospitals. Further, by giving clear instructions to doctors and medical practitioners, regarding non-acceptance of any kind of gifts or bribe also, the application of ethical practices can be ensured in hospitals. Trust must timely review that ethical practices are on the place or not. In conjunction with this, there should be not so much interaction of drug companies’ representative and doctors. Senior manager of the trust is required to check that trust is following stakeholder theory of ethics rather than shareholder theory.
Conclusion:
To wrap up this report, this is to conclude that senior manager of the trust is responsible to ensure the presence of ethical practices and corporate social responsibility. In the field of medical practices, the lead stakeholders are patients as their health get directly affected by the unethical practices of a medical practitioner of a hospital. Unethical behavior of trust can lead to many adverse impacts and in order to prevent them, the management is advised to apply stakeholder theory in the organization and to develop plans and procedures accordingly.
According to the definition, as stated in the Merriam Webster Dictionary, ethics in any line of the services deal with what is good or bad and governs the conduct of the practitioners and the individuals rendering the services on the lines of the moral duty and obligation (Merriam Webster Dictionary, 2018). Ethics refers to the framework of the procedures, principles, practices, and values that govern the act of an organization or individuals. As the medical practitioners possess the specialized knowledge and skills, which have been acquired post the studies and the intensive practical training, the same can only be exercised by them (Fried, 2016). It is the responsibility of the doctors to assure the patient, their families and the society as a whole, that they are worthy of the level of the trust placed with them (Kagan, 2018). Thus, the ethical principles guide the entities and ensure the best manner to render the services to the society, without violating the standards and the beliefs of the society as a whole. This essay is aimed at discussing the principal ethical theories and application of the same on the case study. The essay will conclude on the lines that the ethical theories form a critical part of the conduct of the medical practitioners and the doctors while making the various decisions.
Jeremy Bentham developed the ethical theory of utilitarianism. The theory focuses on the consideration of the interests and the happiness of the whole group, rather than the consideration of the benefits and the interests at the individual level (Oakley, 2015). Thus, the theory of utilitarianism calls for the analysis of any action from the point of view of the provision of the utility and the happiness to the population as a whole. Thus, on the application of the theory of utilitarianism to the actions undertaken in the case study, the following can be stated. The disclosure of the interests of the doctors and the hospital managers in the form of involvement in the events, hospitality received, and the other private business interests; would be beneficial for both the hospitals and the receivers of the services. Thus, it is a win-win situation for the above-stated stakeholders. However, the disclosure of the interests is a losing situation for the practitioners and the managers. The same is beneficial and would provide utility and happiness to a larger number of population, thus it is justifiable from the point of the above theory. The disclosures and the ban would further aid in the transparency in the operations of the sector as a whole, by eliminating the private dealings.
The second theory, i.e. the ethical theory of virtue stresses on the inclusion of the moral habits and the virtues in the behavior, conduct and the duties, whether expressly mentioned to be followed or not. The consideration of the moral habits and virtues becomes important in the event of the occurrence of complex situations. As the medical industry and practices are quite fragmented, with a large competition in the devices and the drugs; the moral habits and the virtues call for the non-acceptance of gifts, hospitalities, and rewards beyond an acceptable level from such organizations, to render preferences (Carr, 2016). However, the major issue in this theory lies in the establishment of the virtues, because of the presence of various cultures, communities, religions, and different acceptability levels of the rewards (Finlay, 2015). As stated in the case study, the amount of acceptability of the rewards and the hospitality have been standardized by the NHS for its practitioners and the managers, this provides for the better application of the theory and thereby, lending to transparent medical practices free from the conflict of interests.
Thus, on the application of the ethical theories, it can be stated that the adoption of the ethics in an important part of the management and the operations of the medical industry and related individuals and systems as a whole. There have been prescribed a range of ethical theories, which guide the behavior of organizations. The aim of every such theory is to promote transparency and openness. The actions undertaken in the case study, are justified as per the ethical theories and are an important step in the medical industry of England.
As the name implies, an ethical manager is a person who is responsible to ensure the presence of ethical practices in an organization. The lead task of an ethical leader is to provide ethical leadership in his/her organization. An ethical leadership is a kind of leadership, which is directed by respect for ethical beliefs and values for the rights and dignity of other people. Ethics is related to a set of values and principles. It provides a situation that should be there. This is necessary to state that a person does not become an ethical leader by the virtue of post, but by the virtue of acts. There are some characteristics that are there in every ethical manager or this can be stated that these features make a person ethical leader of an organization. The same is mentioned below:-
The above-mentioned characteristics make a person ethical manager. Being an ethical manager of an organization, I would put all the ethical practices in place. Firstly, I will analyze the presented ethical issues in the organization. Afterward, I will review some ethical choices and will choose the best one. Many of the ethical theories are there that provides different aspects and concepts. I will choose the stakeholder theory of ethics. The stakeholder theory of the ethics believes that the management of an organization should consider the interest of all the stakeholders and not only the shareholders (Fryer, 2014). By choosing this ethical theory, I will manage my business to high ethical standards. In addition to this, I will develop the ethical policies for each level of the organization and not only for some of them. As mentioned above the features of an ethical leader, I will try to develop the same in myself.
More often, there is a conflict of interest in organizations, where management places their personal benefits ahead to the interest of the whole organization. Being the ethical leader I will review the whole circumstance of an event and will ignore my personal benefits so there would not be any conflict of interest. For being a good ethical leader I will define the values and morals and will give them a shape of policies of the organization that would be known as ethical policies of the organization. I believe that the management cannot ensure the existence of ethics alone and these are the employee of the organization who plays an equal role in the operations and activities of a business. For this reason, I will hire those people who have similar ethical morals and values (Caramela, 2018). I will also define the method of compliance in order to remove any future compliance-related issues. To remove the unethical practices from the organization, I will plans and organize some of the training for the managers of the organization.
Transparency is a topic that often leads the ethical environment and hence I will ensure that there is enough transparency in the affairs of the business. I will remove the unethical practices such as injustice, bribery, discrimination and so on by providing positive motivations to manager and employees as well. To conclude the asked issue, this is to be stated that calmness, awareness, and honesty are some of the features by developing the same I will manage the business ethically.
References:
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Caramela, S. (2018) How to Be an Ethical Leader: 4 Tips for Success. [online] Available from: https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/5537-how-to-be-ethical-leader.html [accessed on 13/11/2018]
Carr, D. (2016) Virtue, character and emotion in people professions: towards a virtue ethics of interpersonal professional conduct. In Towards Professional Wisdom. Oxon: Routledge, pp. 113-126.
Donnelly, L. (2018a) NHS ban on staff receiving gifts worth more than £50 in crackdown. [online] Available from: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/20/nhs-ban-on-staff-receiving-gifts-worth-more-than-50-in-crackdown/ [Accessed on 13/11/2018]
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