Nursing standard (Royal College of Nursing (Great Britain) : 1987)
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This series of articles has been developed with the intention of increasing nurses' awareness of ethics and ethical decision-making and clarifying the relationship between ethical thinking and effective nursing practice. A number of issues have been examined to show how ethics affects the professional role, but many other clinical and non-clinical aspects of nursing demand ethical exploration. In the final article in the series, the relevance of ethics to effective nursing is emphasised and suggestions for enhancing the integration of ethical decision-making into practice are made.
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Decisions about withdrawing and withholding treatment are common in health care. During almost every encounter between health professionals and patients a decision needs to be made about treatment options. In most cases these choices do not pose any difficulty, for example, starting antibiotics when a patient has an infection. ⋯ An ethical distinction is drawn between acts and omissions. How this distinction relates to withdrawing and withholding treatment will be considered. Further ethical issues discussed relate to judgements about the futility of treatment, patient autonomy and nurses' duty of care to patients at the end of life.
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The RCN and Nursing Standard launch a campaign to improve patient nutrition and hydration.