Learning about Duty of care?
If you’re studying nursing, you may be asked to familiarise yourself with ‘duty of care.’
Duty of care is defined as:
“A legal obligation imposed on an individual requiring that they adhere to a standard of reasonable care while performing any acts that could foreseably harm others” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_of_care
So, as a nurse you’ll be learning how to ensure you’re not neglecting patients, how to give a reasonable standard of care and how to ensure your patients aren’t coming to any harm. Additionally, you’ll be taught what ‘care’ means, what it takes to give good care, how to look after others and ignore your own internal (and often overriding) agendas and finally, how to protect others' interests, health and safety.
Learning this will help you:
- Provide superior care to your patients,
- Avoid potential legal minefields,
- Keep you out of trouble with the ANMC and
- Sleep at night!
Why study duty of care?
As a nurse or a midwife, if you don’t have a professional duty of care towards your patients, you could be found guilty of negligence in a court of law, become struck off by the ANMC and potentially cause serious pain, harm or discomfort.
So, you can see that it's really important that you learn about duty of care and thoroughly get to grips with it.
If you’re struggling to master duty of care, the following resources will help you.
Duty of care resources
You can read this book online for free, using Google Books. It’s about nursing ethics, but has an entire section that covers duty of care.
This paper was written by Patricia Staunton who is the President of the Australian Nurses Federation (NSW), who has also authored a textbook of the same name (Nursing and the Law.) It was presented at the 1st National Rural Health Conference, in Toowoomba in 1991. This could be very useful and it contains a number of good examples.
This recent presentation, given in 2008, was created by Charlotte Thompson, who is a professional nursing advisor for the New Zealand Nurses Organisation. The presentation discusses the concept of 'duty of care' and gives some great examples of different obligations you'll have as a nurse.
This free essay will teach you how to write your own essay on the legal issues in nursing. There’s information about duty of care included. Don’t hand it in as your own though, simply use it for inspiration!
Really struggling with ‘duty of care’?
If you’ve read through the resources above and you’re still struggling, don’t worry because help is at hand.
In as little as three hours, our qualified, professional experts can help you with your duty of care work.
You could get help with an essay, paper or thesis on duty of care… Our experts could write you:
- An outline example, detailing the key points
- A paper explaining duty of care, or
- An essay answering YOUR title on duty of care.
This professional service is legitimate, helpful and very useful. Leave your stress behind and get the help you need!
Your top grade is just a click away!
Our researchers at UKEssays can write you a custom Australian nursing essay on any area, and get it to you right when you need it!
If you’re interested in a quote or want to order an Australian nursing essay then please choose one of the links below.
If you would like more information on our essay writing service, with regards to ordering and subjects covered then please click here.
Order Your Nursing Essay Today!
Latest Updates
Complete list of Free Nursing Essays
For a complete list of our free nursing essays ranging from duty of care nursing to nursing schizophrenia and many more, click here.
Popular Australian Essay Areas
Other Essay Areas
We fully guarantee our work





