preview

Nurses Accountaability Case Study

Better Essays

In this essay I intend to examine the issues surrounding nurses ' accountability in relation to the scenario discussed, and to Adult nursing. From the group sessions and further reading I have broaden my understanding of what being an accountable practitioner involves. Nurses are highly responsible for their own actions and care they provide. Consequently they are professionally accountable to the Nursing and Midwifery Council, (NMC) as well as their employer, public, patient, families and to themselves. Nurses have to justify why specific care was given in a particular way, (Royal College of Nursing, 2008). And they are required to use their professional knowledge, judgement and skills to make decisions continually throughout their …show more content…

The group session was based around the discussion of a particular scenario in relation to accountability. Our session studied the story of Emma a newborn receiving positive pleasure ventilation treatment. On one particular occasion nursing staff incorrectly attached her nebuliser to the ventilator consequential causing the over-inflation of the patient 's lungs, as a result the patient sadly died. This scenario lends itself to analysing standards of care.

Legally nurses have a duty to act vigilantly when treating their clients, nurses are expected to achieve at least the minimum standard of care consistently. If a nurse fails this they will be judged as negligent (McHale and Tingle 2007). When analysing the scenario within our sessions, it was discussed that the nurse providing care was negligent, if so they would have been held accountable. Chitty and black (2005) inform the reader that negligence is ‘the failure to act as a reasonable careful practitioner would, in particular circumstances '. To assess how particular practitioner would act in a certain situation in relation to another is more complex and hard to resolve. The law simplifies this judgement using a tool called the bolam test. Simplified this dictates that a practitioner cannot be deemed negligent if the actions taken conform with that of another rational competent health care professional. (samanta 2004). The scenario can be related to adult nursing as well as the other

Get Access