Royal College of Nursing, (2003) Defining nursing. 1st ed [online]. London: Royal College of Nursing. Available from: http://www.rcn.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/78569/001998.pdf [Accessed 3 December 2014]
The purpose of nursing is to promote health, healing, growth and development, and to prevent disease, illness, injury, and disability. When people become ill or disabled, the purpose of nursing is, in addition, to minimise distress and suffering, and to enable people to understand and cope with their disease or disability, its treatment and its consequences. When death is inevitable, the purpose of nursing is to maintain the best possible quality of life until its end.
Nursing interventions are concerned with empowering people, and helping them to achieve, maintain or recover independence. Nursing is an intellectual, physical, emotional and moral process which includes the identification of nursing needs; therapeutic interventions and personal care; information, education, advice and advocacy; and physical, emotional and spiritual support. In addition to direct patient care, nursing practice includes management, teaching, and policy and knowledge development.
The specific domain of nursing is people’s unique responses to and experience of health, illness, frailty, disability and health related life events in whatever environment or circumstances they find themselves. People’s responses may bephysiological, psychological, social, cultural or spiritual, and are often a combination of all of these. The term “people” includes individuals of all ages, families and communities, throughout the entire life span.
The focus of nursing is the whole person and the human response rather than a particular aspect of the person or a particular pathological condition.
Nursing is based on ethical values which respect the dignity, autonomy and uniqueness of human beings, the privileged nurse- patient relationship, and the acceptance of personal accountability for decisions and actions. These values are expressed in written codes of ethics, and supported by a system of professional regulation.
Nurses work in partnership with patients, their relatives and other carers, and in collaboration with others as members of a multi-disciplinary team. Where appropriate they will lead the team, prescribing, delegating and supervising the work of others; at other times they will participate under the leadership of others. At all times, however, they remain personally and professionally accountable for their own decisions and actions.
The RCN listed the six defining characteristics of nursing.
Click on the headings below to reveal a description of each characteristic: