The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia

Running head: ROACH’S Cs
Infographic and Rationale on Roach’s Compassion and Competence
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ROACH’S Cs

ROACH’S Cs
Rationale
The Code of Conduct as presented by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia
(2018), provides a comprehensive guideline for the nursing professionals in context to their
legal requirements, nursing responsibilities, conduct and behaviour. It is evident that to
achieve the highest standards of professionalism, the nursing individuals have to be familiar
with these guidelines and implement them in their clinical practice to ensure safe and
effective practice.
The nurses in every health care setting are required and expected to have compassion,
sympathy and empathy with the patients to help evolve a positive workplace experience and
greater patient satisfaction. According to the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia
(2018), compassion helps the health care professionals, especially the nurses, to better
empathize with the patients, which initiate adequate treatment services being given in a right
period of time. Furthermore, compassion helps to develop a human connection between the
nursing professionals and the profession or work (Cowin, Riley, Heiler & Gregory, 2019).
Compassionate nursing is highly linked with caring actions undertaken by the nurses for their
patients, which helps to develop emotional aspects in the therapeutic relationship and better
provision of care for the patient.
On the other hand, nursing professionals are required to exhibit competent work
capabilities which include the core abilities to fulfil the role of nurses in health care settings.
There are several different attributes of nursing competency, which includes, trait theory,
behaviourism and holism (Fukada, 2018). According to these three different attributes,
competency is determined by the individual traits of the nurses, their core skills and other
elements such as attitudes, values, thinking ability and knowledge (Casey et al., 2017).
According to the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (2018), competency aids the
nurses to achieve the highest standards of professional approach in the workplace.

ROACH’S Cs
Even though compassion has long been associated with the definitive term of
fundamental element in nursing practice, the translation of the act of compassion and
practising the act in clinical settings requires pre-acquired skills and nursing knowledge,
which is often categorized under the category of nursing competency. A nurse can
demonstrate an act of compassion by empathizing with the concerns of the patients and
showcasing other skills of kindness and sympathy towards the patients and their condition.
The different actions that help to demonstrate the act of compassion by nursing professionals
include patient listening, increased responsiveness, paying attention, kindness, empathy and
other gestures that are in favour of the patients and their health outcomes. On the other hand,
nursing competency presents a very broad category of skills and abilities that the nurses are
expected to learn from and deliver in clinical practice. It includes the problem-solving
abilities, decision-making capabilities, confident approach, clinical management and other
skills to attain the professional standards of nursing. Moreover, a competent nurse is more
capable of assessing and delivering care to a patient with the highest proficiency and
standards (Fukada, 2018).
In clinical settings, nursing professionals are expected to show a collaborative
implementation of compassion and competency to treat the patient. A significant relationship
between these two C’s of caring as mentioned by Roach can be observed, which essentially
aims at improving the overall efficiency in the delivery of health care to the patients and help
them achieve highest levels of satisfaction from the service they received from the nurse
while being in the clinical setting (Villeneuve, Tschudin, Storch, Fowler & Peter, 2016).
Competency is a determinant of the clinical abilities, skills and the knowledge that a
nursing individual partakes. It can also act as a determinant whether the nurse is capable of
showcasing skills of compassion while providing care to a patient (Casey et al., 2017). This
leads to the development of a directional relationship between the aspects, which states that

ROACH’S Cs
attaining competency will help the nurses to develop the skill of compassion and practice the
same in clinical settings. Moreover, the act of compassion is more likely to be seen under the
hood of competent care, which requires the knowledge and skills of the nurses to enhance the
care delivery to the patient, improve their health outcome and ensure greater patient
satisfaction scores (Villeneuve, Tschudin, Storch, Fowler & Peter, 2016).
It can be concluded that the two discussed aspects of care, which are, compassion and
competency, are highly necessary for the nurses to demonstrate during their clinical practice,
as stated by the NMBA. Both of them are linked with each other and help the nursing
individuals to develop on personal and professional levels. Furthermore, it helps to achieve
positive health outcomes of the patient and increase the patient satisfaction scores for a
clinical setting.

ROACH’S Cs
References
Casey, M., Cooney, A., O'Connell, R., Hegarty, J. M., Brady, A. M., O'Reilly, P., ... &
O'Connor, L. (2017). Nurses', midwives' and key stakeholders' experiences and
perceptions on requirements to demonstrate the maintenance of professional
competence. Journal of advanced nursing, 73(3), 653-664. Doi:
https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.13171
Cowin, L. S., Riley, T. K., Heiler, J., & Gregory, L. R. (2019). The relevance of nurses and
midwives code of conduct in Australia. International nursing review, 66(3), 320-328.
Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/inr.12534
Fukada, M. (2018). Nursing competency: Definition, structure and development. Yonago
acta medica, 61(1), 001-007. doi: 10.33160/yam.2018.03.001
Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (2018). Nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au. -
Professional standards. Retrieved 13 April 2020, from
https://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/Codes-Guidelines-Statements/
Professional-standards.aspx
Villeneuve, M. J., Tschudin, V., Storch, J., Fowler, M. D., & Peter, E. (2016). A very human
being: Sister Marie Simone Roach, 1922–2016. Nursing inquiry, 23(4), 283-289. Doi:
https://doi.org/10.1111/nin.12168