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Legal, Ethical and Professional Issues

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Legal, Ethical and Professional Issues Ethical Dilemma Within healthcare, practitioners often have to make difficult decisions regarding the care of their patients. This could be to do with giving or withdrawing treatment, or as simple as sharing risk information (Glover, 1997). Ultimately, the practitioner must be able to rationalise any decision they have made (Morrison, 2009). With this in mind, the following assignment will draw upon an ethical dilemma and explore how theoretical perspectives can be utilised within the decision making process. Therefore it will also be pertinent to draw upon the law, and how this influences actions within health care. To facilitate this discussion, I will identify a scenario from practice that …show more content…

One theory that does have a workable approach is that of Beauchamp and Childress’ (1989) ‘Four Principles’. I am going to use this to illustrate how an ethically sound decision could be made for Mary. The first principle; ‘respect for autonomy,’ indicates that patients should have the right to make informed decisions about their care. In Mary’s case, her autonomy has been ignored – she would like to be able to return home to live with her carers and would like unsupervised contact with them, but this has been denied. Having been assessed by the Consultant Psychiatrist, Mary has been deemed to have the capacity to make decisions about where she lives (Mental Capacity Act 2005), though this has not been acknowledged and she is going to be placed in supported accommodation. The second principle; ‘justice,’ relates to an action that is fair and equitable. In Mary’s case, it seems unjust that both she and her carers are seemingly being punished for a claim made during a time when she was unwell. This is particularly important in health care, as practitioners must always be able to justify the care they are giving. In this situation, I think the practitioners would struggle to do this, as the main motivator seems to be based on perceptions, rather than facts. The third principle; ‘beneficence,’ refers to actions that result in a benefit to the

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