Unsatisfactory Professional Conduct In Nursing

According to Health Professional Council Authority (2015) conduct pathway “allows the council to manage notifications (complaints) that may constitute unsatisfactory professional conduct or professional misconduct”. Furthermore, according to Staunton and Chiarella (2013) “unsatisfactory professional conduct includes conduct that is substantially below the standard reasonably expected of a registered health care practitioner of an equivalent level of training or experience”. Based on the case study of Conyard [2015], the nurse was not able to recognise and respond to the deteriorating condition of the patient when the vital signs were in the red zone, in addition, the nurse was not able to document all the necessary assessments and plan of care. According to the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (2011), recognising and responding to deteriorating patient includes measurement and documentation of observations, escalation of care, activating rapid response system and communicating with the team about the clinical deterioration. The nurse would have recognised, responded and correctly followed the protocols by communicating with the multidisciplinary team immediately without delay. For this reason, any complaints that falls under unsatisfactory conduct or professional misconduct …show more content…
The nurse personally reviewed the patient but no proper documentation of her observations even though there was no improvement in vital signs [Conyard, 2015]. This clearly breach standard 1.6 of NMBA standard of practice as documentation defined by Barnett, Treas, and Wilkinson (2016) as a legal evidence where legal experts will examine if a dispute about client care arises such as interventions were timely and appropriate and a tool for communication between the multidisciplinary team about the patient’s status and