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.
Up to 250 jobs could be axed by an NHS trust which runs two hospitals in East Sussex in a bid to cut workforce costs. The East Sussex NHS Hospitals Trust said it hoped the changes would be achieved through natural wastage but redundancies had not been ruled out. The trust, which runs the Conquest Hospital in Hastings and Eastbourne District General, has a £5m deficit. It said posts essential to maintaining safe and effective patient care would continue to be filled.
Kim Hodgson, chief executive of the trust, said it recognised that it was difficult news for staff, particularly when finances had been successfully managed over the past year.
'We are concerned to minimise the effect on our committed, permanent staff who provide such an excellent service and we fully expect to make these savings without redundancies.'
'We also recognise that the measures we plan to take will add to the pressures on us all, but this is preferable to large scale redundancies,' she said.
Eurofound (2006), East Sussex NHS Hospitals Trust, Internal restructuring in United Kingdom, factsheet number 63422, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/63422.