Nursing Assessment

The advantages of a nursing assessment is that problems become clearly defined and this can be easily communicated to others where the patient is the focus. A nursing assessment highlights nursing priorities and plans to aid patients overcome any obstacles with clear evaluation of what has happened. Disadvantages would be the patient’s potential limited awareness of the nursing assessment process and understanding of phrases and plans put in place to help.
Once the patient has been assessed then planning and implementing occurs. The planning stage is planning what needs to be done to help the patient. The planning process allows nurses to develop care plans which should be individualised by creating personalised goals or desired outcomes
It is important that time is taken with the patient in order to develop an effective care plan as well as a good nurse patient relationship. Within The Code (NMC, 2008) it is part of the nursing role to ‘promote the health and wellbeing of those in your care’, care planning allows for this and is a good tool for promoting health and wellbeing as well as choice and reducing inefficiency in care. A study by Waters and Easton (1999) looked into care plans and planning care, they found that care plans are often of little use and many nurses do not look at them until after care has been delivered and use them as a checklist rather than a plan. This could be because many care plans are pre-formulated and designed to suit a wide range of patients highlighting non-specific issues that may not be relevant to everyone. Care may also become regimented to adhere to the care plan in place forgetting holism and patient care (Howatson-Jones et al,
Jones was instated initially on core care plans however there is the option to add goals should the patient or nurse feel it is necessary. Core care plans are prewritten plans of care designed for certain conditions and problems. Core care plans are useful as they are designed upon evidenced based practice therefore should improve patient succession however they remove the element of individualism (Barrett et al., 2009). To address this issue supplementary care plans should be implemented to highlight how personal goals and issues relevant to Mrs Jones are to be addressed and actioned, this ensures a person centred approach to care delivery is