Reflective Practice in Nursing: NSQHS Standard 3 and 4

Running head: NURSING ASSIGNMENT
NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Introduction:
According to Bassot (2015), the application of the Gibbs Reflection Model in Nursing
allows Nurses to introspect upon their clinical experiences. Reflective practice critically helps
Nurses in identifying their strengths and weaknesses and accordingly offers care professionals an
opportunity to work upon their lacunae so as to improve their scope of practice (Bassot, 2016;
Moon, 2013). In this paper, I am going to reflect upon the NSQHS standard 3 and 4 and evaluate
my professional capability in order to determine my competence to comply with the standard.
Description:
The NSQHS STANDARD 3 deals with the prevention and control of Health Associated
Infection standard and the NSQHS STANDARD 4 concerns the Medication Safety Standard. It
should be critically stated that both the standards play in integral role in the provision of effective
care to patients (Safetyandquality.gov.au, 2019).
During my last placement, as a care professional, I witnessed that the quality of care
delivery was not in competence to the NSQHS standard 3 and 4. As a nurse, I was aware of the
hand hygiene routine and its effective role in controlling hospital acquired infections. However,
the organization where I was previously placed had excessive patient load and the nurse to
patient ratio was not optimally distributed. This resulted in attending multiple patients at the
same time and as a result the nurses skipped the five moments of hygiene. Also, the medical staff
attended patients who were susceptible to airborne infections without following any
precautionary measures. The care professionals did not wash their hands before attending the
patients and also did not don PEP.

2NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Also, in my previous placement while checking the 6 right of medication administration I
had misread the medication. Fortunately, my buddy nurse asked me to recheck the medication
and I on rechecking I realized the error.
Feelings:
On reflecting upon the deliberate skipping of the five moments of hygiene by the care
professionals, I honestly felt that it was not correct. I feel I should have brought the issue to the
notice of the hospital authorities so as to reinforce appropriate infection control measures.
On the other hand, the second incident made me feel extremely nervous and low. I felt
that as a Nurse I should have been more careful and read the instruction carefully so as to avoid
the possibility of any error.
Evaluation:
The positive aspect of both the experiences would be my self-assessment ability to
understand that I had yet not assimilated the nuances of the Nursing profession. The negative
aspect would be the anxiety and the feeling of demotivation that I was harboring within myself.
As stated by Gould and Taylor (2017), reflection helps in evaluating the quality of clinical
experience of the nurses.
Analysis:
On evaluating the first situation, it can be mentioned that the NSQHS standard 3
mentions the criteria of the application of quality improvement systems so as to strengthen
infection control strategies within a healthcare environment (Safetyandquality.gov.au, 2019). As
a Nurse, I should not have been a passive observer of what was already going on and should