In 2003 the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) defined nursing as “The use of clinical judgement in the provision of care to enable people to improve, maintain, or recover health, to cope with health problems, and to achieve the best possible quality of life, whatever their disease or disability, until death.” Nurses strive to accomplish the best possible quality of life for their patients, regardless of disease or disability. Crosta (2014) elaborates on this by writing that nurses use clinical judgment to optimise, protect and promote health, ease suffering and become advocates in health care for their patients and their families encouraging person-centred care.
Price (2006) defines person-centred care as care which centres on the patient’s own experience of their needs, health and illness. Patient-centred care is linked within literature to the concept of Holism. Holistic care includes caring for an individual as a whole by assessing their physical, psychological, spiritual, social and cultural needs and providing care in an environment which supports this philosophy (Price, 2006). Person-centred care not only involves the patient but also includes meeting the needs of the family and/or carers of the patient and involving other members of the multi-disciplinary team. The Nursing and Midwifery Council’s (NMC) (2008) Code corresponds with Price (2006) by mentioning that nurses must treat people as individuals and respond to their concerns and preferences, guaranteeing that