Duty of Care has always been a core value of nursing and is known as for one to ‘take care’ or ‘do no harm’. Duty of Care requires a RN to ensure their actions do not harm the patient/s they are nursing and that they ‘do not carelessly omit to do anything that could have prevented harm to the patient situation’ (NZNO, 2008). In order to determine the expected standard of care of an RN, professional standards, codes of conduct, scopes of practice and competencies are all taken into account. If an RN does not take the same amount of care as the “reasonable regulated nurse or midwife” would do in that situation, they are seen as having breached their duty of care to that patient and as a result, the RN will be held accountable (NZNO, 2008). In
