Analysis of the Nursing Unit Manager's Role in Patient Care

This report analyzes the role of a Nursing Unit Manager (NUM) in fulfilling the requirements of the NSW Department of Health, focusing on leadership, management, and patient care. The report explores how a NUM can utilize knowledge of contemporary leadership and management theories, clinical governance, and patient safety to lead, direct, coordinate care, inspire staff, and maintain a safe environment. It includes a concept map illustrating the NUM's responsibilities and discusses research skills, contemporary leadership theories, and the impact of policy on nursing management. The assignment also highlights the importance of the NUM role in patient safety and quality of care, and provides recommendations for clinical practice, including workforce planning, education, and leadership opportunities. The report concludes by emphasizing the need for continuous professional development and the development of essential skills for future nurse managers.

Running Head: NURSING
Nursing
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
The concept map is an outcome of the there key requirements of the NSW Department of
Health (2010) pertaining to the nurse unit manger. These statements are- “Lead, direct and co-
ordinate care in the ward”, “Inspire and support others to achieve their potential” and “Monitor
and maintain a safe environment for patients, staff and visitors”. In response to the three
statements the, assignment discusses how a nurse unit manger can utilise his/her knowledge of
contemporary leadership, management theory, the concepts of clinical governance and patient
safety to aid in the fulfilment of the above three role requirements.
PART B
The assignment deals with the concept map on the three key messages of the NSW
Department of Health. The concept map reflects on the way the nursing unit manager can fulfil
the role of leading, directing and coordinating the care in the ward. The discussion reflects on the
nursing unit manager’s role in supporting others and inspiring the team members to achieve their
potential. Further, the map depicts the third role in monitoring and maintaing the safe
environment for the patients, staff and visitors. It can be concluded that the mind map is the
useful tool when researching and writing a paper. This tool was helpful in determining the
existing knowledge on the topic and the things to explore further. The assignment contributed to
the concept development. The existing knowledge is enriched by linking of these concepts into
the map by ordering, categorising and expanding the concepts and keywords. Overall, working
on the assignment has facilitated the gain of holistic view of topic that has been explored.

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For the purpose of the assignment, contemporary theories of leadership and management
related to nursing practice have been analysed. The concept of clinical leadership in nursing and
its association with the patient outcomes have been studied. Further, the impact of the theoretical
concepts of leadership and management have been analysed critically. The need and impact of
healthy policy on nursing management have been examined to explore the topic. The assignment
had improved the research skills, and search strategy to retrieve relevant details on the given
topic. It has increased knowledge on the truncation of the terms and use of Boolean operators to
narrow the research. The use of different search terms to restrict or broaden the research is useful
in identifying the recent literature pertaining to the chosen area.
Based on the above discussion it is evident that the “Nursing/Midwifery Unit Manager”
is the crucial role. It is vital for the leadership activities, coordination of the patent care and the
ward management. To ensure the patient safety, high quality of care delivery is required, which
is not possible without the supervision of the nursing unit manger (NUM). The assignment has
enlightened the knowledge of core functions of the NUM. The NUMs have huge responsibility
of managing the unit. The framework for the patient care co-ordination is helpful in dealing with
the functions of “lead, direct and co-ordinate” in the ward unit. The framework guides on the
activities that a nursing unit manager can take to fulfil this role. Several strategies that have been
mentioned, provides a deep insight into the, initiatives that can be taken by the nursing unit
manager. These activities include the participation of the nurse manger in the random audits,
attending to work rounds, and the meetings for addressing the concerns of the team members are
evidence based and simple enough to execute (Sayers & Chang, 2015)
These frameworks also give good guidance on how to facilitate the collaborative teams in
delivering the patient care, and collect regular feedback, enable culture of inquiry and the way to

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establish the evidence based practice in nursing care. The assignment creates awareness on the
contemporaneous practice. It educated about taking the standardised approach to clinical
handover, need of establishing structures and processes to create the culture of critical inquiry
(NSW Health, 2010). The guidelines of “Australian Nursing & Midwifery Council” on ethics
and professional conduct act as a framework in recruiting the staff that are appropriate for the job
role. This framework instructs the nursing unit manger to ensure compliance with the mandatory
nurse/midwife training requirements. The mechanism of maintaing the standards of practice that
are in alignment with the ANMC competency standards, the policies and procedures in the
organisation are clearer than before (NSW Health, 2010).
Workings on this assignment have clarified the confusion the cause of certain procedure
in place. For instance, the rate of hospital acquired infections have developed the standards
related to the clinical hand wash monitoring. The checks on the nutrition of the patients and the
need of regular audits are better explained by these standards. These standards help in
eliminating the medical errors, increasing the length of hospital stay of the patients, preventing
misdiagnosis and other catastrophe (Happell et al., 2013).
Overall, the assignment was fruitful in gaining the deep insights on how the nursing unit
manager can utilise the concepts of the clinical governance patient safety, contemporary
leadership and management theory to fulfil the role of leading and coordinating the care in the
ward. The literature pertaining to this area paints a clear picture on how these concepts are
interlinked and aid in the fulfilment of the role of inspiring and supporting others to achieve their
best. There is a bulk of literature imparting lesson on how a nursing unit manager can monitor
and maintain a safe environment for the staff members, patient and visitors (Pennbrant et al.,
2013).

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As a newly registered nurse, these concepts will help in developing the personal and
professional skills. Henceforth, it will be regularly monitored if the personal nursing activities
are aligning with the organisational policies and the standards of ANMC (Smolowitz et al.,
2015). Engagement in career planning will be of greater time from now onwards. It is evident
that continuous professional development is necessary to prepare for the role of the future nurse
manger. In the present clinical practice, there will be a greater focus on optimising the leader
within. Leading the people is an art and the long-term goals will be to observe and learn the
human resource leadership skills, ways to manage relationships at workforce (Pennbrant et al.,
2013). It is difficult to become leader without the ability to influence the people’s behaviour.
Henceforth, as a newly registered nurse the goal will be to develop strategies and identify for the
evidenced based option to mage the diversity in the workplace. Some of the strategies is to learn
the cross cultural skills, respect the autonomy of other team members and the patients in
decision-making. The present focus will be on engageing in the shared decision-making (Rystedt
& Gustafsson, 2013).
To maintain the patient safety and high care quality, the present aim is to learn how the
senior nurse manger punishes the nurses under them for errors or the consequences of the breach
of the code of ethics. It will help to reflect on the personal status as the registered nurse and the
need of improvement considering the nurse and regulations of the concerned organisation.
Engaging in the reflective practice is effective and is an evidenced based option to overcome
personal limitations and devise a plan to move forward to the effective nursing practice (Sayers
& Chang, 2015). To develop the strategic management skills, the plan is to increase the critical
thinking and reasoning skills. The performance improvement can be triggered by strengthening
the clinical practice knowledge. For the next six months, the plan is to improve on the verbal and

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non-verbal communication skills to develop the trust that is needed in team and for building
therapeutic relationship with patients. In six months of time, the goal is to improve on the
effective communication skills, flexibility; critical thinking skills invest more time in learning
and gaining knowledge and pay more attention to details (Cziraki et al., 2014).
Nurses are the frontline of care, and it is necessary to foster an open dialogue with the
clients and their family. Effective communication skills are therefore, important to mage
uncooperative patient and clinical team. It is necessary to ensure flexibility in the field of
nursing due to long shift hours, heavy load, paperwork, busy schedule and last minute changes.
Flexibility will help in adapting to changes quickly. The rationale for working on the critical
thinking skills is to excel in the nursing field. Critical thinking skills will help in making crucial
decision, at the time of selecting the most appropriate intervention amidst the multiple options.
The desire to learn is necessary in this profession, as curiosity will help in becoming an effective
nurse. The field of medicine is changing rapidly making it a need to stay updated and prepared
for continuous learning (Bisholt, 2012). The rationale for paying attention to minute details is the
hectic schedule of the nursing profession. It is necessary to observe the minute details in the
patient’s charts, medication, past medical history and clinical handover. It will ensure the patient
safety. Even if small detail is missed in the diagnosis and intervention, it could lead to fatal
mistake. Based on the literature, there is no standard blue print for the nurse to become
successful overnight. However, strengthening the above-mentioned critical professional nursing
skills will help in succeeding the present position. These are valuable skills, as per the literature
review, which will help to prepare for future as nurse manger (Numminen et al., 2016).
Recommendations for clinical practice-

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 Requirement of effective workforce planning and policy making- need of better
collection and information infrastructure (Gaskell, 2010)
 Improvement in training and education- improved education system needed- to
ensure seamless academic progression (Sullivan & Garland, 2013)
 Expand of opportunities to use nurses in expanded and leadership capacity-
reduce cost and improve patient outcomes (Ellis & Bach, 2015)
 Improve opportunities to double the strength of nurses with doctorate (Smith et
al., 2014)

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References for both part A and B
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Ellis, P., & Bach, S. (2015). Leadership, management and team working in nursing. Learning
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Gaskell, C. (2010). Practical leadership and management in nursing. Nursing Standard, 25(11),
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