National Health Service in the UK - Research Paper Example

National Health Service in UK Discriminations have been present in our society and done against persons on many circumstances. One of these are discriminations intentionally or unintentionally done in providing health service to people. The concern of this study is the discriminations done to elders and to sexual orientation of patients in NHS Trust Hospital. This study will find out if there are anti-discrimination policies and practices done by NHS to discourage discrimination practices. This study is done in three parts. First part describes the NHS and the NHS Trust Hospital. Second, it defines the discrimination and complaints. Third is the review of the anti-discriminatory policies developed by the NHS, and finally, arrive at a comment on these policies. 1. Brief description of the National Health Service and the Trust Hospital. 1.1 The National Health Service (NHS) is a health care system funded by the taxpayers in Europe. It employs 1.3 million people, making it the 4th largest employer in the world. Its current budget for year 2006-2007 is €96 billion. In 1990, under the National Health Services and Community Care Act, the NHS ceased to operate own hospitals but transferred the responsibility of health care to their authorized providers and hospitals. These providers become part of the NHS as independent trusts. b. The East Sussex NHS TRUST - The East Sussex NHS Trust is classified as an “acute hospital serving residents of the place, tourists and those coming from nearby counties. The East Sussex NHS Trust provides general health care from its two general hospital hospitals, the Conquest Hospital and Eastbound District General Hospital. An acute hospital is one that provides short term medical treatments for patients having an acute illness or injury or recovering from surgery. 2. Discrimination, types, and complaints 2.1 What is discrimination This term is defined as “a treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit, racial and religious intolerance and discrimination”. (Commonwealth Times) 2.2 Discriminatory acts committed against the categories listed below are considered unlawful and against The Equal Opportunities Act of 1955 (VEHRC). Table 1. Types of Discrimination age breastfeeding Religious belief or activity Sex Sexual orientation Personal association Career status Disability/impairment Employment activity Gender identity Industrial activity Lawful sexual activity Marital status Parental status Physical features Political belief or activity Source: VEHRC 2.2. Age discrimination has been described in Medical Dictionary as “an attitude that discriminates, separates, stigmatizes or otherwise disadvantages older adults on the basis of chronological age.”(Medical dictionary) When one gets old, oftentimes, an elder is discriminated upon on many opportunities, and being prejudiced to cases of Ageism. This term is the bias beliefs that depression, forgetfulness and other disorders are part of growing old and do not have to benefit from medical treatment. (Medical Dictionary) 2.3 Sexual orientation and lawful sexual activity The Medical dictionary described sexual orientation as “The direction of one's sexual interest toward members of the same, opposite, or both sexes, especially a direction seen to be dictated by physiologic rather than sociologic forces. (Medical Dictionary). According to the Equal Opportunity Act, a person whether heterosexual, homosexual, lesbian or bisexual has the same rights, and it is against the law for someone to discriminate against them because of sexual orientation. 3. Complaints about age .and sexual orientation discrimination on NHS. There are many complaints about discriminations of NHS, but I will focus only on two issues here. 3.1 Age related complaints. Elderly 'failed by NHS complaints system' More than 8000 elders have complained about discrimination on their health care treatment from the NHS. This was the subject of the report of the BBC News (November 30, 2000), that showed a high proportion of hospital patients are elderly. This news carried out the result of the research done by Charity Age Concern that older people are intimated by the NHS complaints procedure and fear that they will be called as troublemakers. When they complain, report said, elders are faced with long years of waiting before their problems are dealt with. Oftentimes, they are discouraged by the staff in filing a complaint. (BBC News, 2000) 3.2 Sexual orientation complaint BBC reports (June 20, 2004) that even doctors are subjected to discrimination in NHS. This news based their report on the interviews conducted among 25 doctors in the NHS composed of -- six from ethnic minorities, four women, seven with disabilities and eight who are gay, lesbian or bisexual. The findings, among others, said that the eight doctors with sexual preferences are discriminated upon by their fellow workers who made jokes about them and also about gay patients. In many cases they find it a barrier for their career opportunities in the NHS (BBC News, June 2004) 4. Anti-discriminatory policies and practices at the NHS. According to ROSE NHS, they always strive to give everybody equal opportunity at work place and in their health care. They said that they adhere strictly to the laws against discrimination. Their employees are likewise advised to do their duties in ensuring health and safety of workers, including protection from harassment and bullying from patients and co-workers. If there is who anyone experiences harassment,, ROSE NHS suggest that the matter be immediately brought to the Trade Union Representative or to the Equality and Human Rights Commission to find out the proper legislations pertaining to the complaint. Pursuant to age and sex-orientation discrimination complaints, certain laws have been legislated to prohibit discriminations. The Sex Discrimination Act of 1975 and the Gender Equality Law of 2007 seeks to give equal opportunities to employees with sex orientation personalities. The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 Discriminating people because of age requirement in employment becomes unlawful under the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations of October 2006. This law also declares unfavorable treatment to someone because of age without justification, victimization and harassment. http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/yourrights/equality 4. Findings and conclusion. There no latest available data on complaints and criticisms to validate the effectiveness of the Equality and Human Rights Commission which was created in 2007. The policies of this Commission is well entrenched in the legislations acts of the government, that is to protect everyone against discrimination of all sorts. Further study is recommended to see how well are the cases brought to the Commission are acted upon. References BBC News. (27 June, 2004) NHS Doctors face discriminations. Retrieved 29 April 2009 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3840021.stm BBC News Thursday, 30 November, 2000, Elderly failed by NHS Complaints System. Retrieved 29 April, 2009 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1046720.stm Commonwealth Times. Definition – Discrimination. Retrieved 29 April 2009 from http://media.www.commonwealthtimes.com/media/storage/paper634/news/2006/10/30/Opinion/Define.discrimination-2 Medical dictionary. Definition – Sexual orientation. Retrieved 29 April 2009 from http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/sexual+orientation Medical Dictionary. Definition - Age discrimination. McGraw-Hill Concise Dictionary of Modern Medicine. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Retrieved 30 April 2009 from http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Age+Discrimination ROSE NHS. (29 April 2009). Discrimination at work Retrieved 30 April 2009 from http://www.rose.nhs.uk/Working_in_the_NHS/Working_as_a_health_professional_in VEHRC . Victorian Equal Opportunity and Rights Commission. Types of Discrimination. Retrieved 29 April, 2009 from http://www.equalopportunitycommission.vic.gov.au/types%20of%20discrimination/default.asp _ Read More