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.
Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare NHS Trust have announced plans to axe 181 posts by the end of March next year and another 129 by March 2009. The trust said the move, which involves closing two wards and reducing bed capacity by 125, would help cut costs.
Compulsory redundancies would be kept to a minimum and changes would not impact on services, a statement added. The Victoria Ward at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester will close in October and a second ward is to shut in December.
This amounts to a reduction of 56 beds, the trust said. It added it would try to deploy as many staff as possible to avoid compulsory redundancies.
A statement from the trust said: 'The expectations of patients and the increasing cost of new healthcare technologies require us to improve productivity and make a fundamental change in the way we offer services to the local community.'
The programme of change, known as Fit for the Future, will enable the trust to balance its books by March 2007.
Eurofound (2006), Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare NHS Trust, Internal restructuring in United Kingdom, factsheet number 64163, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/64163.