Partnership in Nursing: Skills for Collaboration, Conflict, and Ethics

This essay defines partnerships in nursing as strategic relationships between professionals, service users, and other healthcare providers, emphasizing their importance in delivering safe, high-quality care. It highlights three key areas: the professional skills and values necessary for establishing effective partnerships with service users, potential areas of conflict and their resolution, and the legal and ethical principles nurses must consider. The essay underscores the importance of openness, honesty, trust, and respect in nurse-patient relationships, referencing the '6 C's in nursing'—care, compassion, competence, communication, courage, and commitment—as fundamental professional values. It also addresses common sources of conflict, such as differing perceptions of care, visiting hour disputes, and breaches of confidentiality, advocating for effective communication and conflict management strategies. Finally, the essay outlines the four ethical principles guiding nursing practice: autonomy and dignity, beneficence, and non-maleficence, emphasizing their role in ensuring patient respect, well-being, and evidence-based care.

Running head: PARTNERSHIP IN NURSING
PARTNERSHIP IN NURSING
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1
PARTNERSHIP IN NURSING
Partnership can be defined as the arrangement where different parties agree to operate
among themselves so that they can meet common goal and to advance their mutual interests. In
the profession of nursing also, partnerships can be defined as the strategic relationships
developed between nursing professionals, service users and other healthcare professions. This
helps n providing safe, high quality care to the patients (Richardson, Percy & Hughes, 2015).
This not only ensures safety of the patients but also ensure that the patients are highly satisfied
with the care provided to them. The better the partnerships developed among the nurses and
patients, the better is the care delivery. This associates with positive outcome like lesser stay at
hospitals, lesser hospital readmissions, higher patient satisfaction, lesser number of legal
obligations and others (Roberts, Fenton & Barnard, 2015). Not only that, the nursing
professionals also need to establish proper partnerships with other healthcare professionals of the
team. It helps the experts of the team can handle the symptoms of patients with co-morbid
conditions effectively and provide the best comprehensive care to them. This assignment will
mainly highlight three important points. The first point would highlight the professional skills
and values required for establishing and maintaining effective partnerships with service users.
Secondly, it will also show the areas of conflict which may arise when forming partnerships and
the ways of addressing them. Thirdly, it should also show the important legal and ethical
principles that the nurse should consider when forming partnerships.
A unique partnership between the nursing professionals and service users is found to be
extremely important for the development of mutual relationship. This relationship should be
based on the principles of openness, honesty, trust as well as respect. Nursing in partnership with
that of the patients, their carers and their family members helps in providing a comprehensive ,
systematic as well as practical approach. All these ensure that not only the patient gets well but

2
PARTNERSHIP IN NURSING
the service users develop proper health literacy and lead lifestyles which keep them safe from
being affected by chronic disorders. Researchers are of the opinion that effective communication
is the cornerstone of nurse patient relationship and their effective partnership. Nursing profession
establishes successful partnership with the patients by following the most important professional
values which are demarcated as 6 C in nursing (McSherry et al., 2017).
The first professional value that should be harbored by the nurse for establishing effective
partnership is the care. The care which should be delivered by the nurse should help the patients
to improve her health and elf her live good quality life. The service user expects the nurse to
provide the right care throughout out every stage of her treatment. While providing care the
nurse should make sure that the care is provided in a respectful and non-judgmental way. This
could be exemplified. A patient is admitted to the ward due to pain in her back and bruise skin,
an injection with a painkiller medicine needs to be given (Cummings et al., 2015). However
before applying the injection, the nurse should ensure the she clearly states the reason of
providing the injection and ask for his permission. This would assure maintaining the dignity and
autonomy of the person. This would help the patient develop trust in the nurse and he will in turn
cooperate with the nurse accordingly (Spruce, 2015). This will help in establishing a proper
partnership with the nurse. Another important feature that every nurse should possess is
compassion. With the correct exhibition of effective compassionate behavior with the patients,
nurses will be able to develop effective relationship where the patients will feel that their
sufferings and pain are understandable by the nurses. Researchers state it as the “intelligent
kindness” which should be inculcated in the practice of the nurses while caring for patients
(Logan et al., 2017). A patient who is suffering from acute pain due to osteoarthritis and is living
alone in her house in her old age should not be only cared and provided medications and

3
PARTNERSHIP IN NURSING
treatments. The nurse should make sure that interventions for reducing her pain. The nurse
should also provide compassion to the patient where she would feel her level of pain. She should
empathize with her condition so that strong bond can be formed with the patient (Kovner et al.,
2017). Third important factor which is very important is called the competence. The nurse
should be an expert in her fields and should have the knowledge and skills to treat her patients
effectively. The nurse should be able to understand the health and social needs of the patients
and should be competent in utilizing clinical and technical knowledge for maintaining effective
care delivery to the patients (Chu et al., 2016). Chest pain maybe occurs in patients due to
various factors. Therefore, it is the competency of the nurse to correctly diagonise the causing
factors and provides treatment accordingly keeping in mind the social determinants of health.
The next important factor is proper communication. Researchers are of the opinion that
communication is one of the central aspects for developing partnerships with the patients which
in turn results in proper team working. It is found that in many strenuous situations, patients and
family members often remain anxious about the patients’ conditions and therefore this affects
their mental and physical health (Pelletier et al., 2015). When a nurse properly communicates
with the patients providing a detailed discussion of the condition, educating them about proper
lifestyles, and many others, they develop satisfaction. This results the development of trust on
the nurse. Nurses should also develop effective communication skills like active listening to
patients, empathetic approaches in their communication styles, proper body language and others
so that they can make the patients and effective part in their own treatment. Courage and
commitment are the two important values that should be executed every healthcare
professionals. Courage enables every nursing individual to speak for the right of the people and
to develop the strength and vision to innovate and embrace new ways of thinking (Strandas &

4
PARTNERSHIP IN NURSING
Bondas, 2017). Nurses should always stand up for patients courageously and report that they are
facing abuses, ill treatments and similar others. They should be courageous in their approach and
should not lack confidence. Commitment is one of the cornerstones of the duty of the nursing
profession. An individual nurse needs to be committed in order to try her best for improving the
care and experience of the patients (Feo et al., 2017).
Conflicts often arise in every profession and nursing profession is not an exception.
Conflicts may exist between physicians, between physicians and staffs, between staffs and
healthcare teams, nurses and patients and many more. All these hamper partnerships and result in
development of tensed environment (Tobiano et al., 2015). This affects the health of the patients.
Conflicts have adverse effects on the productivity, morale and also patient care. It may lead to
breakdown of trust and may lead into various issues which may even indulge the nurses in legal
obligations. Therefore the nurse should develop skills to handle such conflicts effectively and
implement approaches for resolution of the conflict. Researchers are of the idea that conflicts
which arise among nurses and patients may be from various reasons. These include disparities in
the perceptions regarding patient care issue which is the most often and needs to be addressed
first (Lancaster et al., 2015). For example, if one patient is expecting physiotherapy for her
treatment of her knees but the nursing professionals are of the opinion that she does not require
it, there might be a conflict between patients and nurses where the patient may think appropriate
care is not taken. Another instance of conflicts may arise regarding visiting hours with the
patient’s family. Often, nurses complain that visitor’s do not want to leave the premise on time
even on repeated requests. This becomes a common cause of conflict. Moreover, another form of
conflict also arises when the family members force nurses to reveal some of the confidential
information which they are never permitted to do both ethically and legally. These result in the

5
PARTNERSHIP IN NURSING
development of conflict of the family members with the nurses and affect their relationship.
Blame games of nurses and patients often become a major source of conflicts that disrupt the
care and hamper the health of the patient an also emotional stability of the nurses. Ineffective
communication may also result in conflict where the nurses do not provide importance to what
the patient is saying and only performs professionally without trying to establish bonds with the
patients (Haber & singh, 2014). Improper body language by the nurses hampers quality
relationship with the patients and nurses. Rolling of eyes, sighing and similar others offend
patients. The nurses should thereby learn how to solve conflicts and hence apply proper conflict
management strategies when similar situations arise. The nurses should work by facing goals
where they would fix themselves in finding the right way to respond to patients. Moreover in
many cases, nurses have to face demanding patients where the patients always ask for more
facilities than required from the nurses (Bohani et al., 2014). This makes the nurse engage into
conflicts. The nurse should practice effective listening skills from where they should develop the
capacity to understand the person’s perspectives and act in ways by which the patient feels
respected. The patient should be given an opportunity to offer their perspective and the nurses
should listen to them attentively. They should acknowledge what they have heard from them to
ensure that they have understood it correctly (Tobiano et al., 2015). Reclarifying reduces the
chance of patient dissatisfaction. The nurses should be polite in her approach and should try to
offer her perspectives at a slow pace making the patient understand the issues. Making them
understand with point, never disrespecting them or opposing their views will make the patient
understand the issues. Open mindedness and transparency should be there among the patients
and nurses so that the number of conflicts does not arise (Feo et al., 2017).

6
PARTNERSHIP IN NURSING
There are four important ethical principles that guide nurses in their practices helping
them to correctly design their intervention and ensure effective care. The first one is called the
autonomy and dignity. Autonomy mainly guides the individual nurses in caring patients by
making them respect the wishes of the patients. The nurses should always provide care
maintaining the preferences of the patients and also ensuring that their interventions do not affect
his cultural preferences. They should ask for informed consents from the patients before starting
with the care assuring that the patients are respected and their dignity is maintained. If a nurse is
to start a particular care plan, it is necessary for her to discuss the care plan making him know
what would be done and asking for permission (Haber & Singh, 2014). This helps the patients by
reducing their anxieties and development of trust on the nurses. This ensures development of
partnership where the patient himself would be providing support to the nurse to carry out his
treatment. Moreover other two ethical principles are beneficence and non maleficence.
Beneficence mainly guides the nurse in ensuring that practices which would not only ensure the
safest care but will also ensure that the most modern evidence based care is provided to the
patients. Non maleficence states that the care which should be provided to the patient to reduce
pain and suffering of the patients (Borhani et al., 2014). A nurse who is attending to the patient
can only develop partnership with the patient when the patient becomes sure that the nurse is
providing the best care. Also thinking of ways to reduce the pain and suffering of the patient is
important for the nurse. The more dedicated the nurse is, the better partners they can become in
the treatment procedure. In many cases, conflicts arise due to clashes between the autonomies
practiced by both patients and nurses. Often nurses try to provide the best care to the patient
(Benefiecence) but the patient may not like or accept the care (Dignity of patient). Hence,
conflicts may result in disrupted care to the patients where the effective care could not be

7
PARTNERSHIP IN NURSING
provided. Moreover, justice is yet another principle which states that nurses should provide safe
care to all without discriminating in terms of social status, races, religions, culture and others
(Roberts et al., 2015). Moreover, it is also seen that there are many cases, where nurses
experience biases and stereotypes towards patients of different cultures which affect partnership
and hence this affects patient satisfaction. Therefore the Equality Act was introduced in the year
2010. This act dictates nurses to provide therapeutic care to patients without any discrimination
and caring all patients irrespective of caste creed and religion. Such acts had prevented nurses to
overcome stereotypes and thereby establish effective relationship with patients irrespective of
their culture, religion, race and others (Cummings et al., 2015).
From the entire discussion, it becomes quite clear that nurses should practice and develop
professional skills and values which would ensure development of effective partnerships and
help in increasing patient satisfaction. However, a number of conflicts arise and with the help of
proper communication skills and analyzing power, the nurses can overcome conflicts and still
maintain proper partnerships. Maintaining the ethical principles and legal principles, it becomes
easier for the nurses to strike proper partnership with patients.

8
PARTNERSHIP IN NURSING
References:
Borhani, F., Jalali, T., Abbaszadeh, A., & Haghdoost, A. (2014). Nurses’ perception of ethical
climate and organizational commitment. Nursing ethics, 21(3), 278-288.
Chu, L. F., Utengen, A., Kadry, B., Kucharski, S. E., Campos, H., Crockett, J., ... & Clauson, K.
A. (2016). “Nothing about us without us”—patient partnership in medical
conferences. BMJ, 354, i3883.
Cummings, J., Sheen, J., Kinsella, V., Peate, I., & Alexander, C. (2015). 6C, Competence:
delivering care with compassion can create great results. British Journal of Healthcare
Assistants, 9(1), 34-37.
Feo, R., Rasmussen, P., Wiechula, R., Conroy, T., & Kitson, A. (2017). Developing effective
and caring nurse-patient relationships. Nursing Standard, 31(28), 54-63.
Haber, J., & Singh, M. D. (2014). Legal and ethical issues. Nursing Research in Canada-E-
Book: Methods, Critical Appraisal, and Utilization, 112.
Kovner, C. T., Djukic, M., Jun, J., Fletcher, J., Fatehi, F. K., & Brewer, C. S. (2017). Diversity
and education of the nursing workforce 2006–2016. Nursing outlook.
Lancaster, G., Kolakowsky‐Hayner, S., Kovacich, J., & Greer‐Williams, N. (2015).
Interdisciplinary communication and collaboration among physicians, nurses, and
unlicensed assistive personnel. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 47(3), 275-284.

9
PARTNERSHIP IN NURSING
Logan, K. A. (2017). Meta-synthesis of Caring within Nursing Education (Doctoral dissertation,
University of South Dakota).
McSherry, W., Bloomfield, S., Thompson, R., Nixon, V. A., Birch, C., Griffiths, N., ... &
Boughey, A. J. (2017). A cross-sectional analysis of the factors that shape adult nursing
students' values, attitudes and perceptions of compassionate care. Journal of Research in
Nursing, 22(1-2), 25-39.
Pelletier, J. F., Lesage, A., Boisvert, C., Denis, F., Bonin, J. P., & Kisely, S. (2015). Feasibility
and acceptability of patient partnership to improve access to primary care for the physical
health of patients with severe mental illnesses: an interactive guide. International journal
for equity in health, 14, 78-78.
Richardson, C., Percy, M., & Hughes, J. (2015). Nursing therapeutics: Teaching student nurses
care, compassion and empathy. Nurse education today, 35(5), e1-e5.
Roberts, J. F., Fenton, G., & Barnard, M. C. (2015). Developing effective therapeutic
relationships with children, young people and their families. Nursing children and young
people, 27(4), 30-35.
Spruce, L. (2015). Back to basics: patient and family engagement. AORN journal, 102(1), 33-39.
Strandås, M., & Bondas, T. (2017). The nurse‐patient relationship as a story of health
enhancement in community care: a meta‐ethnography. Journal of advanced nursing.
Tobiano, G., Bucknall, T., Marshall, A., Guinane, J., & Chaboyer, W. (2015). Nurses' views of
patient participation in nursing care. Journal of advanced nursing, 71(12), 2741-2752.

10
PARTNERSHIP IN NURSING
Tobiano, G., Marshall, A., Bucknall, T., & Chaboyer, W. (2015). Patient participation in nursing
care on medical wards: an integrative review. International journal of nursing
studies, 52(6), 1107-1120.