Promote the rights of clients and carers and their role in treamtent planning and recovery [LO6]/ Reflect on the personal perceptions and meaning of health, illness, dying and death as appropriate in the specialty practice area..
[LO7]/Roles and Responsibiity
Order Description
Please provide 5 or more references for each of the modules.
Promote the rights of clients and carers and their role in treamtent planning and recovery [LO6]
Herring (2007) asks this question: ?where are the carers in healthcare law and ethics?? This is a thought provoking question. Herring makes the point that the role of carers is often devalued and their opinion is not considered, because our healthcare is too focused on the individual only. Modern healthcare promotes partnerships with patient/clients and their carers, encouraging them to take responsibility for their health. The question for us as nurses, therefore, is: ?how do we support that partnership??
‘Where are the carers in the healthcare law and ethics’. It is important to understand that while the holistic approach to health care is preferred it is hard to balance the rights of all parties. What is the nurse’s role in ensuring carers and patients/clients have a say and that all opinions are respected. Sharing of information is fundamental to this consideration. The carers play an important role in providing information to health care professionals but do they have any rights to be consider in the decision making of care if there is no legal directive. The patient/client has rights but do the carers have rights as well. Further to this ethical theorie are often at the foundation of nurse’s approach to care. Ethics of Care theory claims that moral agents (carers, clients, health care professionals and institutions) are not separate entities and that the application of universal ethics is not in appropriate. This theory is based on consensus ethics which incorporates the views of all involved in care (Freegard & Isted, 2012).
Read the following articles as a starting point, there are many similar articles out there that you can source for further reading. It might be good idea to bring out the ethics text book again and revise the ethical theories related to this matter. Once you have completed the readings undertake the activities to find information on how the institution you are working views these issues, then complete the component of the assessment task.
READING
Herring, J. (2007). Where are the carers in healthcare law and ethics? Legal Studies, 27(1), 51-73. doi: 10.1111/j.1748-121X.2006.00037.x
Gold, M., Philip, J., McIver, S., & Komesaroff, P. A. (2009). Between a rock and a hard place: exploring the conflict between respecting the privacy of patients and informing their carers. Internal Medicine Journal, 39(9), 582-587. doi:10.1111/j.1445-5994.2009.02020.x
ACTIVITY
Most health care organisations have a patient charter or similar document that is given to patients or clients in the care of the organisation, to explain their rights.
? Find this document for your specialty area and read it.
? Consider, who is it aimed at and does it include the rights of the carers as well?
? Is the organisational charter proscriptive in nature allowing no room for flexibility based on ethical considerations
It would also be worth finding out if the health care organisation has specific policies to cover the rights of patients/clients and their carers.
? Go to the organisation?s policies and procedures manual or web page, and find out what the relevant policies are.
? Are there policy for each party or just a general policy that is inclusive, again is there flexibility in the policy
Jot down some answers to these points as they will assist you incompleting the assessment task component for this module.
