Role and responsiblity of newly qualified nurse Essay - 1

Role and responsiblity of newly qualified nurse - Essay Example This period is a thrilling one for nurses as they start developing new roles, focused on prescribing and these new roles have undoubtedly benefited patients and significantly contributed to expanding nurses’ roles, hence promoting the nursing image as a prime profession (Sines, Saunders & Forbes-Burford 2009, P.294). This paper aims to discuss the nursing roles of Patient Group Directions and Supplementary Prescribing by newly qualified nurses. The structure of the paper covers a detailed analysis of what the roles entail, the definitions of these roles, reasons for selecting these particular roles for the study and an in- depth discussion of these roles supported by relevant literature. The paper covers the legal, ethical and professional issues related to these roles. The paper ends with a summary and conclusion of the discussed roles. Taking up these roles for newly qualified nurses may be challenging. The claim has been that less than 50% of nurses in practice would recomm end their career option and 25% on the other hand, would keenly discourage from the nursing profession. It is no surprise that 33% to 61% of newly recruited nurses plan to depart from nursing in their initial year as professional nurses or completely change employment (Basford, 2003). It is important to explore the adaptation process of newly qualified nurses to the professional job environment, so as to respond and understand issues causing motivated and energetic nurses to leave the profession altogether. It is evident that the transition journey for newly qualified nurses is often frustrating, disillusioning, stressful and discouraging (Basford, 2003).Existing knowledge indicates that new nurses experience moral distress, disillusionment and discouragement in the early stages of practicing professional nursing. Other than undergoing developmental and personal changes, it is expected they make clinical judgments and decisions that are advanced. However, confidence develops into co mpetence, and as the nurse prescribers multiply in number so will the attitude towards the new role become more encouraging (Sines, Saunders & Forbes-Burford 2009, p.293) Rationale for Role Choices The increasing roles of nurses from the traditional medicine administration to current prescribing roles have played a significant role in the provision of quality healthcare to patients. There has been growing acknowledgment that pressures experienced by the health care sector could be partly solved by nurses providing a wider variety of services including prescribing, to patients. The programs have resulted into considerable savings from efficiently using nurses’ and doctors’ time. The important extended roles for nurses have played a critical in improving health care provision and hence are important topics of study in the medical field. Supplementary Prescribing Supplementary prescribing refers to a partnership of voluntary prescription between an independent and supplem entary prescriber, for implementation of a plan on clinical management that is patient specific. The patient has to be in agreement and the role of independent prescriber played by a doctor. It is therefore about the relationship between a patient, nurse and doctor, each