![]()
CARING
We are people who provide care; the care we give to people will impact on them and on their families. How can we determine what is good care? We need to be able to improve care by measuring the quality of it, by analysing and understanding it. To help us do this we can follow models of care and undertake initiatives such as clinical practice benchmarking. The danger is that we explore care but fail to improve it.
There are three main elements to providing the fundamentals of care in a safe and effective way:
1. Nurses are:
• Competent
• Assertive:
• Reliable and dependable
• Empathetic, compassionate and kind
2. Nurses deliver care by:
• Promoting dignity
• Communication
• Assessing need
• Respecting privacy and dignity
• Working in partnership with the patient and their family, carers and other colleagues
3. Caring for people in different care environments
• Community
• Hospital
• As appropriate
• Adequate resourced
• Effectively managed.13
How can we make people feel cared for? In order to understand how to care we need to be aware of how people can feel and to value these feelings and emotions. These can include the following:14
Feelings a person may experience
Fear of equipment such as oxygen, intravenous infusions, hoists, syringe drivers
Being forgotten or left alone in an unfamiliar place, not knowing what the routine is or what is expected of us
Feeling violated because people are taking control, doing things to us, for some bringing back distressing memories of abuse
Helplessness and loss of control, not allowed to make decisions, being frightened and scared
Loss of identity and not feeling like a person but grouped together with others with the same disease or condition
Embarrassment and humiliation mixed sex wards, using commodes by the bedside, people talking over you, belittling attitudes, disregard of privacy
CARE PLANNING
• Involves effective assessment
• Care-planning discussion:
