Delegation in Nursing: Importance, Challenges, and Strategies

Running Head: Delegation in Nursing
Nursing
Essay
System04104
8/12/2019

Delegation in Nursing
1
Introduction
Delegation is an important aspect in patient care or in healthcare services. Delegation
can be explained that it is the ability or power of a registered nurse (RN) to transfer the work
responsibility to other member or staff in the organisation (Weydt, 2010). Delegation of work
is not only transfer off work rather it also shows the transfer of responsibility and
accountability to RN to the LPN or other members who are involved in patient care.
Delegation is not a simple process rather it required various skills and competencies in people
to delegate the care work from one person to another person. Apart from this, delegation also
based on certain factors like personal relationship, positive communication, mutual trust,
cooperation, and ability to perform the work. However, there are some issues affect both RN
and LPN in delegation of work and affect the quality of care that is discussed in this work.
Personal View about Delegation in Nursing
A registered nurse must have competencies to delegate the work to the subordinate
such as LPN and assistant nurse. As a nursing student, I have found that RN must have good
relationship with other staff member to delegate the care work. Skills, knowledge, and
experience some of the key skills that are required to perform delegation of care work in
nursing care. As a student of nursing, I was involved in many training and skill development
programs that helped me to improve my skills to perform the delegation work. As a student
of nursing, I feel that a nurse should have capabilities to establish a good relationship with
colleagues. The nurse should have trust on the LPN and other healthcare staff, so RN can
delegate the work without any fear of quality patient care. To delegate the work, it is
necessary for RN to receive the proper training and knowledge about the delegation process
during the patient care. Training or simulation process helps the RN to develop their
knowledge and skills on regular basis, which are required to perform in the patient, care work
(Bittner & Gravlin, 2018). I have found that I am a responsible person towards my job and
my assigned work. It is the requirement in delegation work that RN must be a responsible
person and should aware about the nature of work that is transferred to other person or nurse
for the patient care. It is also necessary to understand the capabilities of that person who
receives the delegated work whether he is capable in performing the care work or not
(Corazzini, Anderson, Rapp, Mueller, McConnell & Lekan, 2010). In my opinion, the RN
should have capabilities to understand the knowledge and skills of other person is also crucial

Delegation in Nursing
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in delegation of work. As an RN, before delegation of care work, I need to aware about the
skills, knowledge, and experience of people to whom I am going to delegate the care work.
The main aim of an RN should utilise the healthcare resources so patient can get better
healthcare services in the organisation. The registered member of staff is accountable when
she/he delegates the work to other member. Delegation is perhaps the most difficult
responsibilities of a RN because it based on number of factors including personal relationship
to knowing the traits or expertise area of LPN or nursing assistant (Allan, Magnusson, Evans,
Ball, Westwood, Curtis, & Johnson, 2016). A RN must have to assess the need of patient and
their family members then she have to decide that which type of care work can be delegated
to which nurse or member of the healthcare organisation. The major emphasis is generally
based on proving the quality healthcare services to patient (Curtis & Nicholl, 2014).
However, it is also crucial for RN to know that LPN or assistant of nurse are ready to perform
the job or not or they have capabilities to perform the delegated task or not. As a student of
nursing, I feel that I can establish a good personal relationship with people and can easily
know about the person whom I met at first time. These qualities help me to perform the
delegation work in the healthcare organisation more effectively (Mitty, Resnick, Allen,
Bakerjian, Hertz, Gardner, & Mezey, 2010).
Evaluation
An effective teamwork is required to provide quality care to patient. Teamwork and
coordination among team members is globally recognised that these are two crucial tools in
providing patient-centred health care services to people in a healthcare organisation. As a
RN, I feel that I have all the skills to perform in a team and I have all the leadership qualities
that can help me to guide and control the people during the healthcare services (Gravlin &
Bittner, 2010). Delegation of work in an healthcare service needs positive communicating, an
ability to perform the task in more effective and efficient manner, delegate the work to people
and monitor them till the task accomplished, and help the people when they needed. These
qualities help a registered nurse to become an effective RN that can delegate the wok to its
team members and expect for the better output in form of quality patient care. The delegation
of nursing work is required team based approach from the organisational people where two or
more than two nurses or healthcare members are working together to deliver quality patient
care (Gillen & Graffin, 2010). An effective team is one where people in the team can share
their views openly with each other, positively communicate, and help each other in the