Giving care, advice and support to sick, injured or disabled people.
Occupational Profile
This occupation is found in every sector. Registered nurses work in the public, independent and voluntary sector. Registered nurses are a statutorily regulated profession and the standards for proficiency are set by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) and successful completion of this apprenticeship will meet the education requirements to see registration with the NMC. This standard covers the NMC Standards for Proficiency and Annexes A & B for registered nurses (May 2018) and covers the four fields of practice that are Adult, Mental Health, Learning Disability and Child.
The broad purpose of the occupation is to play a vital role in providing, leading, coordinating and evaluating care that is compassionate, evidence based, and person centred. They are accountable for their own actions and those who they delegate to and must be able to work autonomously, or as an equal partner with a range of other professionals. They provide nursing care for people across the whole lifespan who could have complex and concurrent mental, physical, cognitive and behavioural care needs and for people at the end of their life.
Registered nurses make an important contribution to the promotion of health, health protection and the prevention of ill health. They do this by empowering people, communities and populations to exercise choice, take control of their own health decisions and behaviours and by supporting people to manage their own care where possible.
In their daily work, an employee in this occupation interacts with a variety of service users, families and carers, and with an extensive range of health and care professionals and other agencies including social services, police, probation, prisons, housing, education, language interpreters and third sector agencies. They will also work with, support and facilitate the learning of a range of learners from across health and care professions. They might be working in a hospital, someone’s home, the community, social care or public health and may work various shift patterns which enable care to be provided 24 hours per day, seven days per week, 365 days of the year. Registered nurses are a key part of the multidisciplinary teams that meet the integrated health and care needs of patients and service users.
An employee in this occupation will be responsible for providing leadership in the delivery of care for people of all ages and from different backgrounds, cultures and beliefs. They must be able to care for people in their own home, in the community or hospital or in any health care settings where their needs are supported and managed. All registered nurses work as part of a team but on a day to day basis may be working alone when seeing people in their own homes or in the community. They work in the context of continual change, challenging environments, different models of care delivery, an older and more diverse population, innovation and rapidly evolving technologies. Increasing integration of health and social care services will require registered nurses to negotiate boundaries and play a proactive role in multidisciplinary teams. The confidence and ability to think critically, apply knowledge and skills and provide expert, evidence based, direct nursing care therefore lies at the centre of all registered nursing practice. In order to respond to the impact and demands of professional nursing practice, they must be emotionally intelligent and resilient individuals, able to manage their own personal health and wellbeing, and know when and how to access support.
Registered nurses may have responsibility for delegating work to other members of the nursing team and take accountability for the delegated activity.
Summary of Standard
Full Standard
