Healthcare Report: Registered Nurse's Role in Consent and Reporting

This report examines the critical responsibilities of Registered Nurses (RNs) in healthcare, focusing on consent and mandatory reporting. It outlines the RN's role in obtaining informed consent from patients, particularly minors, emphasizing the importance of guardian involvement and understanding patient behavior. The report also highlights the RN's duty in mandatory reporting of child abuse cases, stressing the need for emotional support and collaboration with legal authorities. It emphasizes the significance of ethical, legal, and quality considerations in nursing practice, providing a comprehensive overview of how RNs contribute to patient safety and well-being within the healthcare system. The report concludes by summarizing the importance of RNs in upholding legal regulations, promoting patient safety, and preventing child abuse.

Health of Infants, Children
and Young People

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Standard for reflecting the role of registered nurse (RN) in consent and mandatory reporting .....1
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................3

INTRODUCTION
The registered nurses play a vital role in assuring health care of infants, children and
young people. The report will describe the role of registered nurse in consent during health care
treatment. It will also highlight their role in mandatory reporting of child abuse cases. The
registered nurses must take the consent from the patients before proceeding the healthcare
practices. The report will describe the criterion for registered nurse to achieve the consent from
the patients particularly when the patients are minors or children below 18 then it is an important
task for nurses to find the suitable guardian or individuals who can provide the appropriate
consent and description of necessary facts about the patients. The report will also emphasis on
the requirements of mandatory reporting in case of child abuses. The registered nurses can play a
significant role in helping legal authorities to abolish such activities of harassment and abuses.
Standard for reflecting the role of registered nurse (RN) in consent
Standard (6): Provides safe, appropriate and responsive quality nursing practice
There are various standards for RN for practising the health care. One of the important
standard for RN is to deliver appropriate and safe nursing practices with great responsibility.
These nursing practises are required to be deliver in compliance with the ethical, legal and
quality considerations. This standard provides criterion to RN for guiding them their role in
consent and mandatory reporting. The standard provides following criterion :
Criterion for consent (6.4): Timely direction and supervision
It is the responsibility of the RN to obtain the informed consent from the patient before
proceeding for health care practices. With the consent RN makes sure that the patients allow
health care providers to perform the medical treatment and they are completely aware regarding
the possible risks, benefits and the impact of refusing consents. The timely action plays an
important role in health care (Fact sheet: Recency of practice, 2018). Thus, RN must ensure that
informed consent is obtained from the right person and within time. The time delay in treating
emergency cases can lead to inverse impact on the health of patient.
The consent must be provided from the suitable person. Especially the children below 18
are not able to provide the consent properly. Thus, it the duty of RN that they seek consent from
the guardian of the children. The children are very sensitive and have lot of conceptions
regarding health care (Judkins-Cohn and et.al., 2014). Thus, RN must supervise their behaviour
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and try to assure about all of their questions wisely. For young children the consent must be
provided by their parents and some adult but for better judgement the registered nurses must
observe their behaviour during treatment. This observation may give RN better understanding of
the situation. Being a child it may happen that patients may refuse to proceed further for
treatment out of anxiety and fear. In such cases it is necessary that RN supervise these signs and
provide all necessary information to the patients so that patient can also analyse the important of
consent.
However, RN must consider time factor. If patient is not willing to provide consent then
registered nurse must immediately inform the situation to the supervising nurse or healthcare
provider so that timely action can be taken. The delay in consent can be harmful for the treatment
of patient (Professional Codes & Guidelines, 2015). For gaining the consent of children nurses
must have complete and ample understanding of their behaviour and the procedures of treatment.
This knowledge will help nurses to properly convince the people regarding importance of
consent. It is essential for the nurses to take consent in the written format (Percival and et.al.,
2016). Though patients can withdraw the consent whenever they want but nurses must ensure
that patients must provide consent only after they are completely convinced and have faith in the
health advisor.
Standard for reflecting the role of registered nurse (RN) in mandatory
reporting
Standard (2): Engages in therapeutic and professional relationships
The registered nurses must involve and provide effective professional and therapeutic
relationships. They must develop mutual trust with the patients so that they do not hesitate or
held fear in expressing their issues. It is the responsibility of registered nurses to provide respect
to the diversity of their patients so that they can relate emotionally with the nurses and can easily
coordinate in expressing their feelings and details of incidents like abuses or harassments.
Criterion (2.4) for mandatory reporting: To provide support and guidelines to people for
accessing resources which optimizes healthcare decisions
Registered nurses are not only responsible in providing assistance to health care of
people. Rather, they are also responsible for reporting the events which requires the attention of
legal authorities. Such mandatory reporting is essential when public safety is at risk and it
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requires interference from state regulations. It is common practice for nurses to observe the
abnormality in the behaviour of patients. Especially among children below 18 years the physical
and mental abnormalities in behaviour can be a result of serious abuse or harassment.
As a responsible authority, nurses can attract the attention of authorities towards such
possibilities (Davidov and Jack, 2014).
For instance there are various legal implications for preventing the child abuse. The
government is actively monitoring the child abuse cases. Most of these cases are not reported
due to fear among children. The children who are vulnerable to such abuse incidents do not
inform to anyone because of fear and lack of awareness. Thus, it is the duty of RN to identify the
children who are facing such issues and to convince and guide them that they can be protected
and they deserve a better treatment (Revised registration standards and standards for practice
published today, 2016). When registered nurses observed such child abuse incidents then they
must inform the authorities and must respond via mandatory reporting. Along with the
mandatory reporting registered nurses must ensure that their actions does not cause any trouble
to the child. Before taking any actions nurses must establish an emotional connectivity with the
children so that they can describe complete details regarding abuse (Borimnejad and Fomani,
2015).
These details will not only help in providing complete treatment but will also be useful in
investigating the abuse. The mandatory reporting action of the registered nurse can prevent the
child from future incidents of abuse and harassments. The Australian government has made
compulsory legislations for health care professionals to report such incidents (Professional
standards, 2018). This approach is useful in elimination of abuse incidents. As soon as registered
nurse observes such symptoms among children then they must consult with child about its causes
and how the health care provider can help in the matter. The RN must also inform the
supervising nurse regarding the mandatory report. The nurses must ensure that until the
investigation of legal bodies is completed the safety and comfort level of child is not
compromised (El-Radhi, 2015). The child who has faced abuses also need mental support thus
RN must try to provide the emotional support and counselling services along with the health
care. Thus registered nurses play crucial role in identifying and reporting such critical incidents
which required immediate attention of the legal authorities.
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CONCLUSION
From the report it can be concluded that it is the responsibility of RN to effectively
performs their duties towards consent and mandatory reporting. They can accomplish their health
care objectives by implementing various health care criterion in their practices. The report has
explained the roles and responsibilities of the registered nurses in supporting the legal
regulations for preventing the child abuses. It has also explained the practices that registered
nurse must follow while seeking the consent from the patients under age of 18 years. The report
has also described the essential practices while reporting the abuse incidents. The health
professionals such as registered nurses can play significant role in convincing patients about
importance of consent. Thus it can be concluded from the report that registered nurses plays an
important role in consent and mandatory reporting.
REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Borimnejad, L. and Fomani, F.K., 2015. Child Abuse Reporting Barriers: Iranian Nurses’
Experiences. Iranian Red Crescent Medical Journal. 17(8).
Davidov, D.M., Jack, S.M. and NFP IPV Research Team, 2014. Nurse home visitors' perceived
awareness of mandatory reporting requirements: pregnant women's and children's
exposure to intimate partner violence. Journal of advanced nursing.70(8). pp.1770-1779.
El-Radhi, A.S., 2015. Safeguarding the welfare of children: what is the nurse's role?. British
journal of nursing. 24(15). pp.769-773.
Judkins-Cohn, T.M., Kielwasser-Withrow, K., and et.al., 2014. Ethical principles of informed
consent: Exploring nurses’ dual role of care provider and researcher. The Journal of
Continuing Education in Nursing.
Percival, N., George, A., and et.al., 2016. The integration of BRCA testing into oncology clinics.
British Journal of Nursing. 25(12). pp.690-694.
Online
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Fact sheet: Recency of practice, 2018. [Online] Accessed Through
<http://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/Codes-Guidelines-Statements/FAQ/
recency-of-practice.aspx>
Professional Codes & Guidelines, 2015. [Online] Accessed Through
<http://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/Codes-Guidelines-Statements.aspx>
Professional standards, 2018. [Online] Accessed Through
<http://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/Codes-Guidelines-Statements/Professional-
standards.aspx>
Revised registration standards and standards for practice published today, 2016. [Online]
Accessed Through <http://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/News/2016-02-01-
revised-standards.aspx>
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