Ethics in the digital workplace
Digitisation and automation technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), can affect working conditions in a variety of ways and their use in the workplace raises a host of new ethical concerns.
Nearly 300 doctors and nurses are to lose their jobs at three West Midlands hospitals. Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the City, Sandwell and Rowley Regis hospitals, is cutting 800 jobs to save up to £20m. Also affected are 43 senior managers, 170 health care assistants, 224 clerical staff and 77 other staff, including physiotherapists.
The trust, which has more than 7,000 staff and serves a population of 500,000, has imposed a freeze on vacancies and asked staff to consider voluntary redundancy or early retirement. It said its annual budget of £308m would fall to £303m in the next financial year and a £3m debt had to be repaid.
Eurofound (2006), Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust, Internal restructuring in United Kingdom, factsheet number 63366, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/63366.