Professional Attributes And Scope Of Practice Of Specialty Nurses In Aged Care Facility

Professional Attribute of an Aged Care Nurse

Aged care sectors are increasingly becoming more complex and acute in Australia with the increase in the number of chronic disease and number of the aged population (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2014). The Australian population that is aged over 65 years is estimated to increase. At 2012, the estimated aged population was 3.2 million and this number is hypothesized to increase to 5.8 million by the end of 2031 (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2013). Growing prevalence of co-morbidities associated with the cognitive decline, physical misalignment among the aging people spurs the importance of aged-care specialised registered nurse. The aged-care specialised nurse is known for having greater professional accountability for the patients (aged-people) who demands direct and round the clock nursing surveillance (Brownie & Nancarrow, 2013). The following essay is centred on the professional attributes and scope of practise of speciality nurses in aged care facility.

Professional Attribute of an Aged Care Nurse: Registered Nurse (RN) has an pivotal role in the service management of aged care. Their main profile includes proper planning and delivery of the comprehensive aged care services. They also deal with the operational planning and monitoring of the evidence-based practise while devoting for the continuous quality for improvement (Wickramasinghe et al., 2014). According to the code of professional conduct for nurses in Australia of Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA), nurses must practise in a competent and safe manner. It signifies that the nurses are accountable for the decision that they take and the nursing care they deliver. Moreover, it also signifies that the nurses must not undertake activities which are not included within their scopes of practise. Second code of conduct signifies that the nurses must practise in accordance with the professional standards for the broader benefits of the healthcare system. Here professional standards mean safety and quality in the health care. Aged care generally deals with lot of safety as they are unable to perform basic activities (Rantakokko et al. 2014). Any circumstances that have any tendency to compromise the professional standards or any observation that is questionable or is unlawful or unethical should be condemned with appropriate authority. According to the code of conduct 3, Nurses are required to conduct themselves in accordance with the laws that are relevant to their profession of nursing. As a result, the nurses who are working for the aged care facility must keep themselves updated about the relevant laws and the guidelines and also ensure that they do not engage in any clinical practise that goes against the law. The code of conduct four, states that nurses must respect the culture, dignity, ethnicity, values and the beliefs of the people who are receiving the treatment. The same theory applies for their colleagues. This code of conduct is extremely crucial in case of aged care facilities. Aged people have certain different set of values, high morale and dignity and hence the nurses are required to give full-respect to those values while providing care. Moreover, the nurses are also need to perform in the culturally competent manner. Australia is infiltrated with indigenous people like Torres Strait Islanders (Beckett, 2014). They has separate cultural values is comparison to the Australian originals and hence the nurses are required to respect and consider their cultural values, knowledge, beliefs and personal wishes while decision making. Nurses are also required to promote and protect the interest of the aged care people while ensuring their safety and quality of care. Nurses must also refrain from expression racist and sexist behaviour. Nursing code of conduct five states, nurses must keep the personal information obtained from the patients confidential. The code of conduct six states that nurses are required to deliver care in an impartial manner and that too with accurate information in relation to health care products and other decision related to nursing care. Code of conduct seven states, nurses must support the health and well-being of the people via informed decision making. Now this code is extremely significant in case of aged care as they mostly deals with the well-being of the people. Code of conduct eight stresses over the inherent relationship between the nurse and the patient. Such relationship helps the patients to share their pain with the nurses freely, the case is extremely significant for the aged couples whose children are indifferent to them. Code of conduct nine states: nurses must build community trust and confidence among the people towards nursing population. This is will help more aged people to come forward and avail quality nursing care (Code of Professional Conduct for Nurses in Australia, 2017).

Scope of Practice

Scope of practise: The scope of practise of a registered nurse who is working under the aged-care facilities include high level of clinical assessment, accurate clinical decision making, nursing intervention and surveillance, service co-ordination along with managerial and clinical leadership in order to meet desired outcomes while ensuring the provision for quality care (Bryant?Lukosius et al., 2016). Under their scope of practise, the nurses are required to procure accurate nursing regime for the well being of the patient. The nurses working under the residential or nursing home based aged care facility are also responsible for the restorative care. In aged care facility, the majority of the patients suffer from dementia (Prince et al. 2013). The scope of the nursing profession is to create safe behavioural management in dementia care. Aged care facility also deals with frequent health emergency response like proper identification of acute rate of deterioration in the aged nursing home residents due to sudden or accidental falls and infectious compounded arising out of co-morbidities (McGilton et al., 2016). Palliative care including pain management also falls under the scope of the aged care nurses. Palliative care means end of life care and here the nurses must value informed as well as shared decision making (Wiener et al., 2015). Medication administration is done along with proper medication management in order to avoid medication error. The nurses who are working under for the aged care are required to abide by the quality and usage guidelines of the medicines. The aged people are immuno-compromised and hence they are prone to get affect with the hospital acquired infection or noscomial infection and hence scope of the nurse also deals with proper observance of hand hygiene and other infection prevention programs (Weitzman et al., 2013; Dancer et al., 2014).

Thus from the above discussion it can be concluded that aged care nursing regime require certain degree of specialization in comparison to other nursing care regime in the hospitals or nursing. However, the nurses are required to abide by the Code of conduct from the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia. 

References

Abs.gov.au. (2017). Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian Government. [online] Available at: https://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/D3310114.nsf/home/home [Accessed 14 Dec. 2017].

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Beckett, J. (2014). Encounters with indigeneity: writing about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Encounters with Indigeneity: Writing about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, 35(15), 89-100

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Code of Professional Conduct for Nurses in Australia. (2017). Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia. https://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/ [Accessed 14 Dec. 2017].

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Rantakokko, M., Iwarsson, S., Vahaluoto, S., Portegijs, E., Viljanen, A., & Rantanen, T. (2014). Perceived environmental barriers to outdoor mobility and feelings of loneliness among community-dwelling older people. Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biomedical Sciences and Medical Sciences, 69(12), 1562-1568.

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