Exploring Healthcare Roles: Responsibilities of Nurses, Social Workers

This assignment provides a comprehensive overview of the distinct yet interconnected roles within the healthcare sector, focusing on nurses, social workers, and unqualified healthcare assistants. It elaborates on the specific responsibilities of each professional, highlighting the nurse's role in patient care, advocacy, and education; the social worker's role in connecting patients with resources, providing counseling, and ensuring safe discharge; and the healthcare assistant's role in supporting nurses with basic patient care tasks. The solution compares and contrasts these roles, emphasizing the varying skill levels and areas of expertise, while underscoring the collaborative nature of their work in achieving optimal patient outcomes. The document concludes that effective healthcare delivery relies on the coordinated efforts of these diverse professionals, each contributing unique skills and perspectives to meet the holistic needs of patients.

PROFESSION 1
Nursing
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PROFESSION 2
Introduction
Healthcare sector involve various activities which include treatment, counselling and taking care
of an ailing patients. These activities are carried out by different personnel who are trained in
their area of study. The goal of this assignment is to elaborate nurse role and responsibilities,
social worker role and responsibilities and unqualified health care assistant roles and
responsibilities. Besides that, the solution will compare and contrast the roles and responsibilities
of each personnel.
Nurse roles and responsibilities
The role and responsibility of a nurse is to take care of individuals from various backgrounds and
advise them throughout the illness period. Consequently, apart from this role, nurses have
responsibilities which include advocating on behalf of a patient. Patients have different interest
based on their illnesses and needs. However, they cannot meet these needs without the assistant
of a nurse. The nurse can achieve this through recommending better treatment plans that fits the
patient according to Davies, Keenan and Redley, (2017, p.18). The second responsibility is about
taking care of the patient. Patients view nurses as care givers. For example, a nurse will monitor
a patient and decide on the best treatment. Another role is to educate patients and support them in
any other health issue. For instance, ensuring that the patients understand the disease they are
suffering from and the best medication to take to cure the illness. Education support is also
necessary when a patient is out of the hospital.
Roles and responsibilities of a social worker
Social worker have multiple responsibilities in the nursing sector. The first role is to connect the
patient and nurses to ensure that the needs of a patient is met at the correct time. The second role

PROFESSION 3
is to assist the patients get financial assistance that can aid the treatment process. For example if
the patient needs legal services before the treatment process, it is the role of a social worker to
connect the patient to a lawyer before reaching on to a nurse. Another role is that social workers
offer counselling services to ailing individuals. For example those who may be suffering from
depression. The education help patients to adjust in life and deal with dependencies. A social
worker can also mobilize skilled members of the society who can offer counselling services to
clients according to Sherman, (2016, p.148). The last thing is that a social worker plays the role
of reviewing the patients’ records and facilitating the discharge of the client from hospital to a
safer environment at home.
Unqualified healthcare assistant.
The role of health assistant depends on the place the individual is working. Generally, some of
the roles include supporting the trained nurses to serve the patients. For moving ill children from
one place to another according to Heal, Webster and Harris, (2019, pp.1333). The other role is to
wash and feed the patients who cannot support themselves. However, with training, health
assistants can also test the urine of an ailing patient.
Comparison between the roles.
Nurses and social workers perform roles that are closely similar. However, nurses are highly
skilled than both the social workers and health assistants. Nurses train to work in a wide range of
environment while the social workers are skilled in a specific area for instance counselling.
Healthcare assistant mainly perform physical jobs as opposed to professional work. The reason is
that they are not trained in a specific field of nursing.

PROFESSION 4
In conclusion, the three different field of nursing cooperate together to achieve nursing goals.
The only different is the skill that everyone one of them will have while delivering services.

PROFESSION 5
References
Davies, S., Keenan, C. and Redley, B., 2017. Health Assistant in Nursing: a Victorian health
service pilot. Asia-Pacific Journal of Health Management, 12(2), pp.17-24.
Heal, S., Webster, C. and Harris, A., 2019. Blood donation: nurse roles and
responsibilities. British Journal of Nursing, 28(20), pp.1332-1334.
Sherman, M.C., 2016. The school social worker: A marginalized commodity within the school
ecosystem. Children & Schools, 38(3), pp.147-151.