Task 1: Core Ethics and Values in Nursing Home Care

    A nursing home is a place for those people who are not at the hospital and who cannot be taken care of in their homes. Most of the nursing homes are usually positioned like hospitals with 24 hours working nurses and staff members who provide: medical care, verbal communication, and professional related therapy. In addition, most of the nursing homes, in general, are like a home away from homes hence making the older people feel comfortable (Lloyd, 2010). Lastly, in the nursing homes, there is no fixed day for habitual activities because the staff members are expected to develop a good relationship with the older people.

Task 1

Outline and discuss the core ethics and values that should underpin care in the nursing home.

Freda Principles Emphasize on principles such as Fairness, Respect, Equality, Dignity and autonomy .These principles not only guides the health care service providers but also users (Currie, Finn, and Martin, 2010).

Principles of life

Principles of life apply to people involves in provision of social, services including health services. Principles of life guide against inappropriate influence during the course of service provision

Caring is a general phenomenon which is defined as the way public think, feel and act towards others people; caring is a characteristic of humanity. These aspects turn out to be clear in caring scenarios through nurses’ practice (Barnes, 2011). Those people who got involved have diverse experiences of caring depending on their thoughts and feeling. In agreement with that, Edwards (2002) argued that ethical values are the strength of character in the way we conduct ourselves and how we deal with different ethical situations. In this case, nurses are required to treat residents with; respect, good attitude towards elderly and their family members and humanistic care towards the older patients.

Normative ethics involves the way a person ought to act when faced with different situations (Edwards, 2002). These values usually guide every other person in their dealings and decision making process in everyday life. Nurses have a duty to uphold their level of proficiency, preparation and bring a quality care, give tasks carefully and assess the services given to the letter before handling the older people in the nursing homes (Benner, Tanner, and Chesla, 2009 ). Nurses are supposed to apply ethical standards of in their practice as it is narrated in the nurses’ code of conduct and not just apply the codes as a cover policy if something goes wrong to the patient.

Task 2: Factors Influencing Personal Ethics and Values in Nursing Homes

Empirical ethics portrays the study of how an individual normally acts in unusual caring situations (Kangasniemi, Pakkanen, and Korhonen, 2015 ). These values in caring are principles based on skilled ethics. The information in professional values usually describes the perfection of good caring; how it ought to be and how it ought to be abounding in agreement with normative ethics. Nurses have an obligation on their own personal duty but they are also synchronized to ensure that they give the best care to the elderly patient in the nursing home (Kangasniemi et al., 2015). By the use of empirical values, nurses are supposed to allocate enough time and expertise in a way that older patients assistance. In order to build a compassionate relationship with the patient, nurses must give older people the benefits of support, fairness, acceptance, and appreciation. Nurses should have a holistic observation of the older patient i.e. be aware of the emotional, spiritual, physical and mental aspects of the older patient. The nurses here are also supposed to have self-confidence in their knowledge when dealing with older patients.

Interaction involves actions or influences of individuals and things on one another. In a caring situation, there is an interactive relationship between nurses and older patients. If the people recognize a state of affairs as real, the consequences are real as well. In this case, both the nurse and the older patient only recognize the reality in this encounter (Currie, Finn, and Martin, 2010)

Integrity involves respecting the dignity and ethical totality of every individual without conditions or limits. The nurses as professionals are supposed to have an open-minded communication with the older patient right decision-making and modesty are encouraged (Currie, Finn, and Martin, 2010). The action of the nurses toward the older patient must always reveal their commitment to the truth-telling commitment.

Task 2

Discuss factors which may have influenced the development of the personal ethics and values held by the individuals’ poor care.

Faith, spirituality and religion are issues that usually define many people and it allows many people to make sense of their health illness and experiences. Here the nurses are required to show a quick to respond to nursing care such as: keeping an open mind to their patient, asking the patient questions, assuming nothing has happened and lastly paying attention to the behavior of the patient. If a good nursing care is to be achieved for the patients, it is important that nurses learn in advance how to relate well with their patients without considering: theirs client faith, culture, religion, education, gender and social economic status. They ought to respect the patients as individuals.

Task 3: Appropriate Ways to Maintain Professional Boundaries while Resolving Challenging Situations.

Culture

Culture is a system of characterizes, behaviors and beliefs that define members of a particular society. Culture influences an individual’s behavior therefore it could have influenced the behavior of the carer.

Social values

The nurses ought to be proud when providing nursing care to the patients. However, they re required to meet the patients needs which are normally seen as social beings (Banks and Gallagher, 2008). In this regard; they are needed to develop a comprehensive and interactive outlook on social health cases and a sign of commitment to their clients hence portrays ethical responsibility.

The personal up bring values is an attitude that finds what a person believes about ethics and right or wrong things depending on how he or she has been brought up. A nurse may not personally think that the course of health check-up treatment chosen by an elderly patient is the right one. However, under the Code of moral values for Medical Association, a nurse must respect the rights, independence, and freedom of choice of the patient. Regularly most people at work resolve ethical conflicts by drawing a line linking their expertise and individual roles. In this case, they try to separate their work from their private life and follow their individual professional code of conduct.

Economic values

Economic values in nursing normally concentrates on issues based on the adequate and availability of staff members in hospitals or nursing homes. There must be an effective ratio link between the nurses and patients in order to achieve a substantial health care. In addition A good ratio of staff members also reduces the spread of  certain deseases in hospitals ( Gandoy-Crego, Clemente, Mayán-Santos  and Espinosa, 2009).   

Most of the nurses normally make their decision according to their professional values when they are dealing with the elderly patients. In addition, the Developing these values in nursing is very vital because it increases the care quality to the patient’s, it also increases patient’s understanding and professional socialization (Parandeh, Khaghanizade, Mohammadi, and Nouri, 2015). Professional values are in connection with personal believes and they are habitually entreched in personal values which are normally considered appropriate for the staff members of every profession. The attainment and internalizing the professional values are important in the care background for professional growth and providing a universal framework for meeting professional prospect and principles besides ever-increasing ethical dilemmas. However, increasing nursing professional values is very vital because of promotion of quality care, enhancement of patient’s understanding, raise of work satisfaction and preservation of nursing staff.   

Human values can be defined as a one set of individual beliefs and attitudes concerning the truth. Both beliefs and morality deal with individual relationships. It looks at how human being treats other human beings hence promoting good over bad things (Downie,199 9).                Cultural values

Culture change is a viewpoint that intends to change nursing homes from preventive institutions lively communities of elderly and individuals who care for them. The most important standard of cultural values is that both the staff and the residents will be obviously empowered toward self –determining resolution makers (Reamer, 2013).

Nurses are required to uphold moral value and dignity to all patients or any other human beings without caring their personal attributes such as respect extends to oneself as well as of other people (Parrott, 2014). The nurses ought to portray selfregarding duties which refers to sphere of duties that usually concentrates on professional development and personal integraty.

Task 3

Identify and explain appropriate ways to resolve these situations whilst maintaining professional boundaries.

Nurses are required to be transparent, therapeutic and principled with all their customers and former client. When the issues are intricate and boundaries are not clear, the nurses ought to discuss their concerns with a well-informed and trusted colleague. Reveal your private information only with a beneficial intent, such as developing trust and establishing a bond with a client. Concentrate on the client’s needs (Rhéaume, Dionne, Gaudet, Allain, Belliveau, Boudreau, and Brown, 2015). Do not reveal intimate information or give long images of your personal knowledge

Nurses need to be cautious in forming a private association with a former client. Think about the amount of time that has conceded since the expert relationship ended; how mature and vulnerable the former customer is; whether the former customer has any impaired decision-making capability; the intensity, character and period of the nursing care that was provided; and whether the client is likely to require your care in the near future (Rheaume et al., 2015). The nurse needs to maintain confidentiality to the patient. Here the nurse has a duty to maintain confidential information of the client. A good relation and trust may be destroyed between the nurse and the client if the confidential information is disclosed without the patient knowledge (Grant, Huby, Watkins, Checkland, McDonald, Davies, and Guthrie 2009).

Training on cultural sensitivity. Cultural sensitivity training is focused on educating professionals on how to deal with members of different cultures. This would be an appropriate strategy for dealing with such a case (Grant et al., 2009).

Job description. A job description describes the roles, responsibilities and tasks associated with a particular role. Familiarizing health care providers with would be an appropriate strategy for maintain professionalism and guiding their conduct.

Code of conduct. A code of conduct would inform healthcare providers of their expected conduct (Aveyard, 2014). By using these codes as a point of reference, they will be in a better position of dealing with such situation

Conclusion

Due to the advanced age of the residents living in nursing homes, the poor hygienic conditions in nursing home areas can lead to the spread of germs hence bringing some ill consequence to the elderly. So there is a need for the staff members to take precautions on matters of cleanliness to all the staff members and the areas that normally come into contact with people on daily basis.

References

Aveyard, H., 2014. Doing a literature review in health and social care: A practical guide. McGraw-Hill Education (UK).

Barnes, M., 2011. Abandoning care? A critical perspective on personalisation from an ethic of care. Ethics and Social Welfare, 5(2), pp.153-167.

Benner, P.E., Tanner, C.A. and Chesla, C.A., 2009. Expertise in nursing practice: Caring, clinical judgment, and ethics. Springer Publishing Company.

Banks, S. and Gallagher, A., 2008. Ethics in professional life: virtues for health and social care. Palgrave Macmillan.

Downie, R.S., 1994. Healthy respect: ethics in health care.

Currie, G., Finn, R., and Martin, G., 2010. Role transition and the interaction of relational and social identity: new nursing roles in the English NHS. Organization Studies, 31(7), pp.941-961.

Grant, S., Huby, G., Watkins, F., Checkland, K., McDonald, R., Davies, H. and Guthrie, B., 2009. The impact of pay?for?performance on professional boundaries in UK general practice: an ethnographic study. Sociology of health & illness, 31(2), pp.229-245.

Gandoy-Crego, M., Clemente, M., Mayán-Santos, J.M. and Espinosa, P., 2009. Personal determinants of burnout in nursing staff at geriatric centers. Archives of gerontology and geriatrics, 48(2), pp.246-249.

Kangasniemi, M., Pakkanen, P. and Korhonen, A., 2015. Professional ethics in nursing: an integrative review. Journal of advanced nursing, 71(8), pp.1744-1757.

Lloyd, L., 2010. The individual in social care: the ethics of care and the ‘personalisation agenda’in services for older people in England. Ethics and Social Welfare, 4(2), pp.188-200.

Parandeh, A., Khaghanizade, M., Mohammadi, E. and Nouri, J.M., 2015. Factors influencing development of professional values among nursing students and instructors: a systematic review. Global journal of health science, 7(2), p.284.

Parrott, L., 2014. Values and ethics in social work practice. Learning Matters.

Rhéaume, A., Dionne, S., Gaudet, D., Allain, M., Belliveau, E., Boudreau, L. and Brown, L., 2015. The changing boundaries of nursing: a quatitive study of the transition to a new nursing care delivery model. Journal of clinical nursing, 24(17-18), pp.2529-2537.

Reamer, F.G., 2013. Social work values and ethics. Columbia University Press.