Roles and Responsibilities of Specialty Nurses in Ensuring Safety

This paper discusses the roles and responsibilities of specialty nurses in providing emotional and physical safety in a specialty area. It also addresses the identification of safety issues, strategies to address them, and the legal aspects associated with specialty nursing.

Nursing
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Roles and responsibilities of specialty nurse...................................................................................2
Identification of safety issue in the specialty area...........................................................................3
Strategies to address the issue..........................................................................................................3
Legal aspects associated with the specialty nurse...........................................................................3
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................4
References........................................................................................................................................5

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Introduction
The fundamental objective of the paper is to discuss the roles as well as responsibilities of
specialty nurses to provide emotional and physical safety not only to the patient but also to the
nurse in a specialty area. It is seen that nurses in healthcare setting experiences various risks
while handling patients. Thus, it will discuss the strategies that will help in addressing the safety
issue that occurs in a specialty area in the clinical setting. It will provide information related to
the legal aspects based on the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) standards
where the nurses must maintain timely, comprehensive and accurate documentation of actions,
decision-making and planning.
Roles and responsibilities of specialty nurse
According to NMBA standards, the specialty nurse plays a crucial role in providing safe and
quality care to the clients. Under the Standards of nursing practice and Code of Conduct, an RN
must follow, maintain and respect professional obligations (Usher et al., 2018). The nurses
possess the responsibility to provide person-centered and evidence-based practice for the
wellbeing of people and protecting patients as well as themselves from getting injured. This
helps them to develop a therapeutic and respectful relationship with patients and generate a
culturally safe environment for nursing practice. It nurses are responsible for improving their
professional behavior by considering relevant national laws. As per nursing standards, the nurses
are required to have extensive research on how to handle patients safely by adhering to
Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) and Nursing and Midwifery Board of
Australia (NMBA) standards (McCrorie, Roberts, Sainsbury, Boldy & Gower, 2017). The nurses
must make efficient use of different assessment tools and techniques to avoid the occurrence of
emotional and physical safety issues. It is the primary responsibility of the nurses to report any
incident related to professional misconduct to the nurse unit manager. Therefore, the nurses must
enhance their professional nursing skills to deliver honesty, truthfulness, admiration as well as
compassion towards their work.

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Identification of safety issue in the specialty area
According to my placement, safe patient handling is the issue based on emotional and physical
safety that is especially related to my specialty area that is oncology. A safe patient handling
policy serves a safer approach to both nurses as well as patients by minimizing or removing
manual lifting of patients (Murray, Sundin & Cope, 2018). Based on safe patient handling policy
the ANMF supports the utilization of electronically lifting aids, and operational beds along with
other tools to help midwifery staff and nurses to handle, transfer and move patients from one
place to another. It also promotes lawful and ethical regulations to provide safety environment to
the patients needing or receiving care by reducing the risk (Missen, McKenna & Beauchamp,
2016). The breach of such regulations is considered either unprofessional conduct or professional
misconduct.
Strategies to address the issue
In order to mitigate the safety issue related to safe patient handling, the healthcare setting must
provide workforce safeguards and training to enhance the culture of compliance and maintaining
regulatory standards (Vernon, Chiarella & Papps, 2018). The clinical settings must implement
effective processes that help in motivating individuals to assist in their own transferals that
includes lifting their own body weight. The manual lifting of the patients must be avoided in
every situations apart from life threatening or strictly exceptional circumstances (Cecil & Glass,
2015). As per ANMF the handling requirements of the patients must be documented and
assessed before the admission of the patient into the healthcare setting. By following the
principles related to Safe Handling of Patient’s, various measures must be implemented to reduce
or eliminate the risk factors. The nurses who are engaged in the care of a patient must carry out
assessment before handling that patient. The handling assessments are required to be reviewed
and monitored regularly. All these strategies will prove to be effective for the healthcare system
along with nurses while handling a patient.
Legal aspects associated with the specialty nurse
ANFM states that nurses possess the right to execute their work within a safe environment
without any risks related with patient handling. It helps them to build privilege and trust by

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developing a relationship among patients and nurse. As per NMBA standards, handling aides and
methods to transfer or move patients must serve the highest level of protection to patients, nurses
and midwifes (Barakat-Johnson, Lai, Wand & White, 2019). Moreover, the healthcare
management is required to provide supervision, training, instruction and information to the
nurses related to safe work environment, safety systems or tools, fittings, fixtures and facilities.
According to Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004, midwifes and nurses possess the right to
be represented and consulted based on the matters of health and safety implications (Piccenna,
Lannin, Scott, Bragge & Gruen, 2017). It includes decision-making, trailing, purchasing,
development and refurbishment related to patient handling environments. It is significant that the
nurses must be aware of the regulations under National law that includes fulfilling the
registration standards and reporting regulations. Australian Health Practitioner Regulation
Agency (AHPRA) states that nurses must take reasonable care of the health and safety of their
patients along with their own health and safety. Nurses must ensure that they practice ethically
and legally and does not involves in unlawful behavior as it may affect or damage the reputation
of their nursing profession. ANMF reveals the fact that nurses must ensure to protect and
minimize patient handling injuries that takes place at the workplace level.
Conclusion
The paper concluded by critically analyzing the roles and responsibilities of a specialty nurse. It
is seen that nurses possess the significant responsibility of accessing, analyzing and utilizing the
best possible approaches to make effective decisions for providing quality and safe care to the
patients. The paper discussed the safety issue related to safe patient handling policy, which is
significant for nurses to build a respectful and trustworthy relationship among patient and nurse
and provide safe environment for patients and for themselves. The healthcare setting must use
electronic tools to handle patients and avoid using manual handling techniques. It also provided
relevant information regarding legal aspects that needs to consider by specialty nurses while
handling patient’s safely.

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References
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and experiences of hospital nurses providing pressure injury prevention and
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Cecil, P., & Glass, N. (2015). An exploration of emotional protection and regulation in nurse–
patient interactions: The role of the professional face and the emotional
mirror. Collegian, 22(4), 377-385.
McCrorie, P., Roberts, P. A., Sainsbury, D., Boldy, D., & Gower, S. (2017). Perceptions of
nursing and physical therapy students toward peer-led Interprofessional education in
manual handling. Nurse educator, 42(1), E1-E6.
Missen, K., McKenna, L., & Beauchamp, A. (2016). Registered nurses’ perceptions of new
nursing graduates’ clinical competence: A systematic integrative review. Nursing &
health sciences, 18(2), 143-153.
Murray, M., Sundin, D., & Cope, V. (2018). New graduate registered nurses’ knowledge of
patient safety and practice: A literature review. Journal of clinical nursing, 27(1-2), 31-
47.
Piccenna, L., Lannin, N. A., Scott, K., Bragge, P., & Gruen, R. (2017). Guidance for community‐
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social care in the community, 25(2), 458-465.
Usher, K., Woods, C., Conway, J., Lea, J., Parker, V., Barrett, F., ... & Jackson, D. (2018).
Patient safety content and delivery in pre-registration nursing curricula: A national cross-
sectional survey study. Nurse education today, 66, 82-89.
Vernon, R., Chiarella, M., & Papps, E. (2018). Investigating the Relationship Between
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Nursing Regulation, 9(3), 36-52.