Issues Influencing Nursing Practice

Consent is a vital factor within nursing practice as it will gain trust and respect from the patient, which is essential for giving high quality care as a nurse (Nurse and Midwifery Council, 2010). Consent must be obtained from the service user to give the nurse permission to care for them and come in to any physical contact. To support this, the Nurse and Midwifery Council (NMC) have put guidelines in place for the nurses to follow, as it is part of their code of conduct. Debatable arguments of why consent is important within adult nursing and child nursing will be discussed in this assignment, as well as the similarities and differences. If nurses do not gain consent from service users, they will be showing extremely poor nursing practice and would not be following their professional code of conduct. (NMC 2010) However, there are laws and guidelines that will influence nursing practice to be up to the correct high standard. The law supports both the professional and the service user and should have a positive influence on the care that is given (Garwood-Gowers 2001). Discussions on diversity will also be dissuaded in this assignment and how it influences the nurses practice.

Consent needs to be gained from every patient including adults. However, the way consent can be given can vary in three different ways; valid consent, written consent and implied consent. All types of consent are acceptable for an adult patient to give if they have the mental capacity to do so. It is the nurses decision whether they believe the consent that is given is valid enough and if the patient has the capacity to consent for themselves.

The nurse have guidance from the NMC, on how they discreet the patients capability to consent for themselves. The ...

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Human Rights Act. (1988). Available at: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42/contents [Accessed 23 January 2014].

National Health Service (NHS). (1948). Available at: http://www.nhs.uk/Pages/HomePage.aspx [Accessed 23 January 2014].

The Care Quality Commission or CQC. (2009). Regulates and inspects health and social services in England. Available at: http://www.cqc.org.uk/ [Accessed 20 January 2014].

The Nursing and Midwifery Council or NMC. (2008). The Code: Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics for Nurses and Midwives. London: NMC. Available at: http://www.nmc-uk.org/ [Accessed 20 January 2014].

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN). (2007). Available at: http://www.rcn.org.uk/ [Accessed 20 January 2014].