Roles and Responsibilities of Registered Nurses in Healthcare

Nurses are the backbones of a healthcare system (NHS, 2019). Registered nurses have to deal with manifold responsibilities such as observe patient’s health regularly, maintain transparent information delivery in the workplace, work synergistically with colleagues to meet common healthcare goals, conduct effective administration of medicines and comply with all the health and social care laws (Mccarron et al. 2018). This essay will present a critical as well as comprehensive discussion of roles and responsibilities of registered nurses. Here the essay will discuss the impacts of recent changes in the healthcare on roles and responsibilities of registered nurses. It will also discuss the NMC codes and standards and their implementation into nursing practice. This essay will also discuss responsibilities of registered nurses in maintaining effective communication in the multidisciplinary team [MDT]. Finally, the essay will make a recommendation to improve the way registered nurses can better perform their roles and responsibilities as per the healthcare needs.

In recent years, NHS have passed through several changes in its work process, legislation, clinical tools and techniques used in the treatment, health assessment process, healthcare regulations and ethics, healthcare communication and the way health care professionals deal with each patient (Silvestre et al. 2017). All these changes pose potential impact on how registered nurses perform their roles and responsibilities in terms of meeting the health needs of patients and achieve the healthcare goals. As compared to the past time, in modern healthcare the way registered nurses conduct the physical health assessment of patients is more organised, well-structured and systematic, in which nursing professionals must have the high level of professional knowledge and expertise in performing the assessment safely (Parker and Hill, 2017). Several changes have been taken place in the modern healthcare field, that make it obligatory for nursing professionals to have high skills and expertise in delivery high quality and compassionate care to patients. These changes are the presence of complex and critical health condition in majority of patients, the increasing expectation from patient’s side on the nursing professional in relation to get high quality care, the changes in the pattern of health issues and diseases in people and high life expectancy of people. Nurses must have high skill in applying the highly modern and effective treatment and care plan to meet the holistic health needs of patients (Oxelmark et al. 2018). These changes in healthcare needs make todays nurses obliged to develop skill in performing manifold functions (Creamer and Austin, 2017). Such patient’s physical and mental health assessment, patient’s behavioral assessment, close loop communication with colleagues and effectives medicines administration to meet the critical health needs of patients

As stated by Regan et al. (2017), in previous era, only doctors and pharmacist have the liabilities for having the in-depth and clear understanding on safe and effective medicine administration. This is because at that time only doctors were involved in the medicine administration and medicine management process. In modern healthcare the entire scenario is different. Under NMC (2015), now a days, student nurses have always undertaken professional training on safe and effective medicine administration and medicine management that are necessary for them when they will be newly graduate nurses to promote safe use of medicines for each patient (Kurnat-Thoma et al. 2017). Student nurses must have good knowledge in the subcutaneous administration of different medicines which is very important in modern healthcare in which patients with chronic diseases needs this medicine administration process. In modern healthcare nurses must have clear understanding on usefulness and dose of different medicines, and their ways of administration into patient’s body. As stated by Ke et al. (2017), in modern heartcare context, registered nurses need to have strong knowledge on the crisis management and risk assessment process, which will enable them to detect all the possible risks that are associated with patients care.

In modern healthcare context, registered nurses need to have good understanding on different types of communication (Kurnat-Thoma et al. 2017). Todays registered nurses must know that which types of communication needs to be conducted based on the current healthcare needs. Nurses can develop effective close loop communication within the emergency ward in which they can close the communication loop to get the valuable advice had suggestion from all the staffs in the MDT regarding providing the improved and high standard care to patients (Kurnat-Thoma et al. 2017). On the other hand, when registered nurses find out that there are not all the members are available at same times to discuss the patient’s treatment, then they must develop the asynchronous communication such as video conferencing, web chat, ward round. Asynchronous communication is the process, in which there is no scope for a conducting face to face communication by arranging physical meeting (Regan et al. 2017). Therefore, it can be stated that, the changes in modern healthcare pose obligations of nurses to shape their roles, skill and abilities thereby improve their way of working .

NMC or Nursing and Midwifery Council is a regulatory organisation that is set by UK parliament to regulate and control the work process of nurses and midwives in the UK [NMC, 2015]. The major role of NMC is to set the standards for nurses and midwives that they need to implement into the practices to provide the high quality and compassionate care to patients. NMC set the criteria that each student nurse needs to meet to get the registration with NMC. As stated by Dento et al. (2019), NMC is associated with setting the standards that registered nurses need to follow and implement into their practices to maintain their professional accountability and integrity. NMC sets four standards such as prioritizing people, preserving safety, practicing efficiently and promoting professionalism. Under the NMC standards, registered nurse and midwives must put the personalized needs of patients at the heart of care delivery. NMC standards is associated with posing obligation on nursing professionals and midwives to perform best practices to promote patient safety (Pearson. and Wallymahmed, 2020). NMC administers that all the registered nurses and midwives work under their level of competence and professional knowledge to promote patient’s safety. NMC also controls and regulate the way registered nurses and midwives use different clinical tools and procedures to provide high standard care to patients. In this context Rodger and Hussey (2017) mentioned that, NMC sets educational criteria that each student nurse needs to pass through to get the degree of register nurse with NMC. NMC plays crucial roles in setting codes and conducts for student nurses that they need to follow and implement into the practice while working as assistant practitioners during their placement (Skypala et al. 2018). Through setting all these standards and codes, NMC aims to ensure that a high standard, compassionate and personalized care will be provided to all the services users in the UK irrespective of their race, age, ethnicity and religion.

Under the four NMC standard three are several codes of Conducts that need to be complied with and followed by the registered nurses and midwives in their workplace to provide the high standard care to patients and maintain their professionalism (Cook et al. 2019). Under NMC (2015) code, preserve safety, registered nurses are accountable to the clinical processes and tools they are going to use to provide the best care to patients. The registered nurses need to ensure that they have clear knowledges and expertise in using all the techniques and tools that needed to be used in patient’s care delivery, in terms of eliminating risk of any errors (Leigh and Roberts, 2018). Registered nurses and midwives must ensure that that the vulnerable patients are provided with proper safeguarding environment in which they are protected from abuse and harm.

Under NMC standard, practice effectively, nursing professionals need to work efficiently by using best effort and knowledge in meeting the major healthcare goals of organization. Under the NMC standard promote professionalism, nursing professionals and midwives would maintain synergistic, cooperative and supportive relation with all their colleagues and seniors. They must maintain an positive and supportive environment in which they will treat each people with proper respect and dignity. As stated by Basinska et al. (2021), while it comes to promote professionalism, registered nurses must uphold their ethical as well as more values and standard in their workplace. They must act with integrity, accountability and honesty to maintain the transparency of their work. Under NMC codes, registered nurses need to maintain their professional behavior in their workplace and ensure that there is no risk of discrimination bias and abuse.

NMC (2015) mentioned while it comes to priorities people, registrars nurse and midwives must treat each patient as an individual and focus on the personalized needs of each individual, As mentioned by Spencer et al. (2017), person center care is one of the most effective and best suited care process in meeting the personalized needs of patients. Under the NMC (2015) code of priorities people, registered nurses must listen to their patients and anise whet they expressed regarding the health issues, pain, choices for treatment and preferences [NMC, 2015]. Nursing professional must respect patient’s autonomy and patient’s right to confidentially.

While it comes to work in the multidisciplinary health care setting, effective communication is fundamental to maintain the transparent information delivery in the workplace. As stated by Hibbert et al. (2017), effective communication in the multidisciplinary healthcare setting can be defined as the process in which all the health and nursing professionals can easily share all the necessary information regarding the treatment, patient’s current health updates, duty schedule, patient’s case study and ongoing medicines of patients etc. An effective communication is crucial in the multidisciplinary healthcare setting to let all the health care staffs, nurses and health care professionals to stay connected to each other thereby obtaining all the necessary information regarding the patient’s heath updates and the ongoing care process (Ke et al. 2017). Effective communication is fundamental in maintaining a synergistic and collaborative relation among all the health and nursing professionals that will enable them to discuss all the achievement and impediments regarding the health care context thereby developing strategies to meet common healthcare goals.

Effective changes need to be done in terms of patient care and wider community. One of these changes is improving skills and professional knowledge of nurses to conduct an effective early recognition and responding system to provide the high quality as well as immediate care to critical patients (Ke et al. 2017). Another important change that needs to be done for improving patient care is providing training and career development opportunities to nursing professionals which will promote their professional and academic development. As mentioned by Spencer et al. (2017), for sake of providing high quality care to patients, nurses must be involved in the continuous professional development (CPD) which will enable them to shape their skills and professional ability as per the health needs of patients. It is important to increase support to families and groups in the community who are devoid of proper social and health care for promoting positive mental and physical health in community. Another change that needs to be done is improving the good level of communication between nurse and patients. Nurses must develop an excellent communication skill that will enable them to maintain a transparent and effective interaction with their patients thereby understanding patient’s health needs (Kurnat-Thoma et al. 2017). Nurse must be efficient in conducting the close lop communication within the workplace which will enable them to maintain good information delivery system within the team that improves the way nurse deal with clients. Registered nurses play crucial roles in maintaining effective communication in the multidisciplinary team. They act as the important mediator between patients and doctors therefore transferring all the instructions of doctors to the patients to be followed and share all information regarding patient’s current health updates, the health issues, congoing medication process to the doctors. Registered nurses maintain effective communication with pharmacists to discuss the usefulness of different medicines in patient’s health, the dose of different medicines and their sides effects (Regan et al. 2017).

From the overall discussion it can be concluded that, nurses play manifold roles in healthcare ranging from proving high standard care to patients to medicines administration. They play crucial roles in complying will all the health and social care guidelines and legislations to maintain their professional accountability and integrity, NMC (201%0 sets fours standards for the registered nurses and midwives that they need to implement into their practice to ensure that high standard care is provided to each patient. Effective communication is crucial in multidisciplinary health setting in which registered nurses play major role to share all the patient-related information to their health care professionals. Registered nurses maintain transparent information delivery system in the multidisciplinary health setting to ensure the that right information transferred to each healthcare professional at right time so that they can develop and effectives care plan.

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Rodger, D. and Hussey, P., 2017. From Entry to Practice to Advanced Nurse Practitioner–The Progression of Competencies and How They Assist in Delivery of eHealth Programs for Healthy Ageing. Forecasting Informatics Competencies for Nurses in the Future of Connected Health, p.111.

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Higgins, A., Downes, C., Varley, J., P. Doherty, C., Begley, C. and Elliott, N., 2019. Evidence‐based practice among epilepsy specialist nurses in the Republic of Ireland: Findings from the SENsE study. Journal of nursing management, 27(4), pp.840-847.

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Parker, J.M. and Hill, M.N., 2017. A review of advanced practice nursing in the United States, Canada, Australia and Hong Kong special administrative region (SAR), China. International Journal of Nursing Sciences, 4(2), pp.196-204.

Pearson, S. and Wallymahmed, M., 2020. The new NMC standards: Changes to student supervision and assessment. Journal of Diabetes Nursing, 24(3), p.136.

Regan, S., Wong, C., Laschinger, H.K., Cummings, G., Leiter, M., MacPhee, M., Rhéaume, A., Ritchie, J.A., Wolff, A.C., Jeffs, L. and Young‐Ritchie, C., 2017. Starting Out: qualitative perspectives of new graduate nurses and nurse leaders on transition to practice. Journal of Nursing Management, 25(4), pp.246-255.

Rodger, D. and Hussey, P., 2017. From Entry to Practice to Advanced Nurse Practitioner–The Progression of Competencies and How They Assist in Delivery of eHealth Programs for Healthy Ageing. Forecasting Informatics Competencies for Nurses in the Future of Connected Health, p.111.

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Skypala, I.J., De Jong, N.W., Angier, E., Gardner, J., Kull, I., Ryan, D., Venter, C., Vlieg-Boerstra, B.J. and Grimshaw, K., 2018. Promoting and achieving excellence in the delivery of Integrated Allergy Care: the European Academy of Allergy & Clinical Immunology competencies for allied health professionals working in allergy. Clinical and translational allergy, 8(1), pp.1-6.

Spencer, M., McManus, K. and Sabourin, J., 2017. Incontinence in older adults: The role of the geriatric multidisciplinary team. British Columbia Medical Journal, 59(2).

Unsworth, J., Melling, A. and Porteous, D., 2020. Developing an integrated approach to the assessment of student nurse competence using the Total Client Care (TCC) assessment tool. Nurse education in practice, 44, p.102757.