Nur 510: Personal And Professional Development In Adult Nursing

NUR 510

Personal and Professional Development in Adult Nursing

Word Count – 1913

This essay will reflect on a scenario witnessed on placement in an acute stroke ward, which involves a female patient who had recently suffered a Cerebral Vascular accident and had refused any nursing intervention including food, fluids and medication. The essay will highlight the importance of communication skills between nurse, patient and family and will discuss how the nurse worked autonomously in the situation. The essay will explain how the multi-disciplinary team was involved to ensure continuity of the patients care and will highlight the involvement of the Mental Capacity Act (2005). For confidentiality purposes all identifiable information has been

Beauchamp and Childress (2009) suggest for a healthcare professional to fail to make an attempt at persuading a patient who refuses treatment would be morally incorrect. Lowth (2013) suggests patient autonomy does not allow healthcare professionals to make the decision for the patient, but it does allow them to educate the patient by providing accurate and complete information. Mrs Jones family came to visit the same morning and the nurse explained to her daughter what had occurred. Mrs Jones family attempted to encourage her to accept the treatment the hospital team were trying to offer, however this was unsuccessful she expressed her wishes to have no intervention and she was ready to die. The family became extremely distressed and verbalised their frustration with Mrs Jones who was refusing any type of nursing care, food or fluids. The nurse displayed excellent communication skills with Mrs Jones family, she empathised with the family and explained that she would refer Mrs Jones to her consultant and Clinical Psychologist for further assistance in the matter. Frampton and Guastello (2010) suggest communicating effectively with patients and families is the foundation of providing quality healthcare, the manner in which a health care professional conveys information to a patient can be equally as important as the information being communicated. On reflection

The Mental Capacity Act (MCA 2005) aims to protect patients who do not have the capacity to give informed consent. If a patient is incapable of making a decision due to a severe stroke that has affected the patient’s ability to make informed decisions, then treatment can go ahead if in the best interest of the patient (Jones, 2008). According to the British Medical Association (2014) where consent to medical treatment is required, the health professional proposing the treatment needs to decide whether the patient has the capacity to consent, a functional test of capacity which focuses on the decision-making process itself will be utilised to reach a