Legal issues in nursing and law – Nursing is a profession within the healthcare sector focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life. Nurses may be differentiated from other healthcare providers by their approach to patient care, training, and scope of practice. Nurses practice in many specialisms with differing levels of prescriber authority.
Many nurses provide care within the ordering scope of physicians, and this traditional role has shaped the public image of nurses as care providers. However, nurses are permitted by most jurisdictions to practice independently in a variety of settings depending on training level. In the postwar period, nurse education has undergone a process of diversification towards advanced and specialized credentials, and many of the traditional regulations and provider roles are changing.
Nurses develop a plan of care, working collaboratively with physicians, therapists, the patient, the patient’s family, and other team members, that focus on treating illness to improve quality of life. Nurses may help coordinate the patient care performed by other members of an interdisciplinary healthcare team such as therapists, medical practitioners, and dietitians. Nurses provide care both interdependently, for example, with physicians, and independently as nursing professionals.
Legal issues in nursing and law
Q. Define law. Write down the types of law.
Answer:
Definition of Law:
According to Wilson:
“Law is that portion of the established though and habit which has gained district and formal recognition and the shape of uniform rules backed by the authority and power of the government”.
Or
According to Pound:
The law constitutes body of principles recognized or enforced by public and have administration of justice.
Or
According to Salmaind:
“The law is the body of principles recognized and applied by the state and the administration of justice”.
Q. Write down the types of law.
Answer
Types of Law:
Law can be divided into two types. These are:
A. Civil law: It includes rules and regulations that specify the required course of action to be followed by an individual in business and social relationships with others. It is concerned with relationships among people and the protection of a person’s right. Although violation of civil law might cause harm to an individual or property, no grave threat to society as a whole usually exists. For examples, defamatory statements made about a person might lead to personal problems, but they do not threaten society in general.
B. Criminal law: It defines offences that affect public welfare and security and impose penalties. It includes rules forbidding conduct that is injurious to public order and specifying punishments to be administered to individual who exhibits injurious conduct. It is concerned with relationship between individuals and governments and with acts that threatens society and its order. Misuse of controlled substances is an example of criminal conduct for nurses.
Q. Write down the sources of law.
Answer:
Sources of Law:
Laws originate from four sources, which includes:
A. Constitutional law: It is the judgmental law of the country. It is the law that governs the state. It represents the will of the ultimate sovereign the people. They alone determine how it shall be made, revised or amended. It is the constitutional law that determines the structure of the state, its power and duties and it also determines the form of government and its relationship with various organs of the government.
B. Statutory laws: It are passed by the legislative body or parliament of a state in accordance with the constitutional law. In other words, statutory laws are enactments of federal and state legislative bodies. These regularize, relationship between citizens and the state between individuals and group and between individual and the others, etc. The statutory law is created by elected legislative bodies of state (legislative assembly) or administrative bodies such as Bangladesh Nursing Council.
C. Common law: It is a body of legal principles that has evolved from court decisions. On other words it is created by judicial decisions made in courts where cases are decided.
D. Administrative law: It consists of the rules and regulations established by administrative agencies that have been made by the executive branches of government (President or Government). It is that part of public law which regulates the conduct of public officials and discharge of their duties.
It determines the mutual rights and duties of public officials and citizens. This law is not administered by ordinary courts but by the administrative courts presides over by the administrative or executive officers. It deals with the cases where officials of state violence their powers to all arbitrarily.
Q. Write down the functions of the law in nursing.
Answer:
Functions of the Law in Nursing:
The law has many valuable functions where applied to nursing practice.
- It differentiates nursing practice from the practice of other health care profession.
- It also describes and protects the rights of clients and nurses.
- It helps establish the boundaries of independent nursing action.
- It assists in maintain a standard of nursing practice by making nurses accountable under the law.
- It provides a framework for establishing which nursing actions in the care of clients are legal.
Q. Discuss at list 4 major ingredient necessary for patient care?
Q. Write down the major ingredients necessary for providing patients care?
Answer:
Major Ingredients Necessary for Providing Patients Care:
A. Knowledge: In caring a nurse needs to know many things such as which the client is what the client is and what the client’s needs are and what helps her or him.
B. Patience: When one cares, one has patience with people & practice at their pace. That can be frustrating but it is vital with real caring is to take place.word
C. Honesty: One needs to see the other as that person is not as one wound like that person to be. It is not just telling a lie, but a kind of transparency, openness that respects the others.
D. Trust: Trust involves an appreciation of the other, of that person’s independent existence.
Patient Right
Q. Define patient right?
Answer:
Patient rights encompass legal and ethical issues in the provider-patient relationship, including a person’s right to privacy, the right to quality medical care without prejudice, the right to make informed decisions about care and treatment options, and the right to refuse treatment.
Q. Explain patients’ rights during hospitalization.
Q. Describe the nurse’s responsibility to up hold the following rights of patients.
Answer:
Patients’ Rights during Hospitalization:
Nurses have responsibility to up hold the following rights of patients:
- To health care that is accessible and that meets professional standards regardless of the setting.
- To courteous and individualized health care that is equitable human and given without discrimination as to race, color, creed, sex, national origin, ethical or political beliefs.
- To information about their diagnosis prognosis and treatment including alternatives to care and risk involved In terms they and their families can readily understand so that they can give their informed consent.
- To informed participation in all decisions concerning the health care.
- To information about the qualifications, names and titles of personal responsible for providing their health care.
- To refuse observation by those not directly involved in their choice.
- To privacy during interview, examination and treatment.
- To privacy communicating and visiting with people of their choice.
- To refuse treatment, medications or participation in research and experimentation without punitive action being taken against them.
- To co-ordination and continuity of health care.
- To appropriate instruction and education from health care personnel so that they can achieve an optimal level of wellness and understanding of their health needs.
- To confidentiality of all records and communications written or oral between patients and health care providers.
- To access to all health records pertaining to them and the right to challenges and correct their records for accuracy and the right to transfer all such records in the case of continuing care.
- To information on the charges for services, including the right to challenge these.
- To be fully informed as to all their rights in all health care settings.
- To observe the 5 right while giving medications:
- Right patient.
- Right time.
- Right drug.
- Right dose.
- Right route.
Q. Write down the basic human rights in health care.
Q. What are the basic human rights in health care?
Answer:
Basic Human Rights in Health Care
- Considerate and respectful care.
- Obtain complete medical information.
- Receive information necessary for giving informed consent.
- Refine treatment.
- Consideration of privacy.
- Confidential treatment of personal information and medical records.
- Request services.
- Examination and explanation of financial changes.
- Know institutional regulation.
- Refuse participation in research project.
- Expect reasonable continuity of care.
Professional Standard & Misconduct.
Q. What do you mean by professional standard?
Q. Define professional standard?
Answer:
Definition of Professional standard:
The Professional Standards include an introduction that explains what standards are, why they are important and who has responsibility for them. It also defines Professional Standards and Indicators (i.e., how each Professional Standard is met).
Indicators are used to illustrate how each Professional Standard is applied in four main areas of practice:
- Clinical
- Education
- Administration
- Research
Nurses who practice safety respect both the voluntary and legal controls that map the boundaries of nursing practice. Both of these controls are designed to provide quality health care and to protect society from unsafe actions.
Q. Write down the professional standards in nursing?
Answer:
Professional Standards in Nursing:
- Voluntary standards, developed and implemented by the nursing profession itself are not mandatory but are used as guidelines for peer review.
- Professional nursing organizations continually reassess the functions, standards and qualifications of their members.
- These organizations are guided by their own assessment of society’s need for nursing and by the public’s expectations of nursing.
- Legal standards on the other hand are developed by a legislature and are implemented by higher authority to determine the standards for the education of nurses, to set requirement for licensure or registration and to decide when a nurse license may be suspended or revoked.
Q. As a professional nurse how will manage the risks of maintaining professional standards?
Answer:
Ways to Manage the Risks of Maintaining Professional Standards:
- Identification of risk in a selected domain of interested.
- Planning the remainder of the process.
- Mapping out the following: Defining a framework for the activity.
- Developing an analysis risk involved in the process.
- Mitigation or solution or risk using available technology.
Q. What do you mean by professional misconduct in nursing?
Q. What is professional misconduct?
Answer:
Professional Misconduct:
Professional misconduct is defined as any act or omission on the part of the nurse, midwife or family welfare visitor that contravenes the standards as laid down in the code of ethics & professional conduct. A contravention of this could potentially result in:
- Harm to the patient.
- Abuse of the professional relationship.
- The reputation of the profession being bought into disrepute
If any Nurse, Midwife or Family Welfare Visitor is found guilty of contravening the Code of Ethics & Professional Conduct it will be deemed professional misconduct & may result in action being taken against the Nurse, Midwife or Family Welfare Visitor by the Bangladesh Nursing Council as the professional regulatory body.
Q. State the professional misconduct.
Q. What are the professional misconduct in nursing?
Answer:
Professional Misconduct:
Notice the overlapping in the following categories. For example:
- Medication and treatment errors.
- Failure to follow standards of care (e.g. institutional policies, medical order).
- Failure to assess and monitor.
- Failure to communicate (e.g. falling to report in a timely manner, falling to report significant changes in patient status: poor communication).
- Failure to use equipment in a responsible manner, use of defective technology or equipment.
- Failure to act as a patient advocate (e.g. to question incomplete medical orders).
- Swan Infections caused or made worse by poor nursing care.
- Failure to document.
Read More….