NUR1014 Professionalism and Contemporary Nursing Assignment

Introduction

Reflection expounded as a piece of academic writing that enables scholar to reflect on their strengths and areas of improvements. The current assignment will consider Gibb’s model for writing reflection; this model is consist of six stages- description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion and action plan (Ahmadpour et al, 2025). The scholar will describe own learning experience and insights related to shortage of health workers and how it influence nurse roles and responsibilities.

Native Assignment Help supports students in understanding nursing topics, reflective writing and healthcare challenges. As an Assignment Helper UK, we provide academic guidance on Gibbs’ reflective model, nursing workforce shortages, patient safety and team performance to help students structure their assignments effectively. Our support also covers critical analysis, professional development and evidence-based academic writing.

Main Body

Description

In this reflection I am going to reflect on learning experience based on “shortage of Healthcare Workers [HCWs], particularly nurses”. Referring to my group project I will demonstrate how manpower shortage creates drastic impact on quality, management of care and team performance within healthcare settings in Hong Kong. HCWs shortage determined as the condition when workforce crisis occurs due to limited number of healthcare workers. This proves to be a crucial situation and number of patients keeps exceeding while HCWs remains less. Workforce shortage is characterised by long shifts, extreme burden, stressful environment and lack of support towards nurses (Ross, 2022). Shortage of nurses creates extreme pressure on existing team and as a result, nurses have to comply with double shifts that reduce their satisfaction and drastically impact their performance. Nursing shortage reduces quality of services and adversely impacts patient outcomes specifically in areas such as- End-of-life-care and palliative care. Patients require consistent care from nurses and due to shortage of nurses patient has to compromise with their needs (Naseem, Naseem and Amir, 2024). Current situation of manpower shortage leading to negative team outcomes due to work-life imbalance, lack of time for communication and lack of time for training. Existing workforce does not have enough time to grab new learning and opportunities as they have to complete extra hours due to shortage of workforce.

Feelings

In the role of nursing student, I have learned that an effective workforce is crucial for improving team performance as this significantly impacts patient outcomes to greater extent. However, manpower shortage led to develop feeling of stress, anxiousness and frustration, I realised that shortage of workers creates extreme pressure on remaining nurses and reduces their career developmental opportunities. Further nurses are not able to invest their time on patient as they have to look upon number of individuals. This drastically impact nursing team performance and develops adverse influence on patient outcomes. Throughout my learning I have analysed that vulnerable patient requires consistent support and this developed a sense of urgency in me; I was keen to know how nurses manage such situation and how they adapt such crucial situations.

During this learning; I have identified the importance of resilience in own profession; I was stressed out and emotionally disrupted when I realised that nurses faces huge difficulties while complying with adverse situations of manpower shortage. Nurses are overburdened with their work and this led to reduce their productivity; despite facing significant challenges nurses focuses on improving patient outcomes. Consistent pressure hampers nurses and adversely influences their practices. Hence, I have learned that team performance is crucial for improving patient outcomes and shortage of HCWs negatively impacts team performance. Therefore, healthcare settings must adopt robust mechanism for ensuring support to nurses and retention rate of HCWs should be increased within settings. Stressful working environment, lack support and decreased opportunities create manpower shortage and thereby, it is important to imply significant focus on this area.

Evaluation

From the evaluation of presentation I have developed significant insights and I got to know that HCWs shortage drastically impact approaches of care. For instance- nurses are overburdened with work and due to this they are not able to invest time in learning new things. This impacts their performance in negative manner and drastically impact team performance. Furthermore, in such situation healthcare settings does not focuses on organising training sessions which also reduces developmental opportunities for nurses. Thus, this situation has been highlighting about importance of integrating innovative care model that promotes collaboration and team management. It is essential to implement inter-professional collaboration and leadership approaches as it lead to undertake effective team management and equal roles and responsibilities would be allocated. Effective leadership supports in taking appropriate actions and further boost motivation among nurses and improves team performance positively.

In the views of Montgomery et al, (2021) it has been identified that appropriate staffing levels ensures positive team outcomes and assures effective delivery of care services which enhances patient outcomes. It is important for healthcare settings in Hong Kong that they must focus on adequate staffing levels and this can be done through staff training and developmental initiatives. Clinical training, Generic competencies training and continuous professional development require to be integrated on consistent basis for enhancing team performance. Whereas, Cho and Steege (2021) stated that workplace violence and bullying reduces morals of nurses and contributes in high turnover. Therefore, it is important to develop an inclusive environment in the settings as this leads to build trust among nurses and enables them to share their issues and doubts with nurse leader. This further results in developing sense of belongingness among nurses and motivates them to work in effective manner.

Analysis

From the analysis I have witnessed that limited growth opportunities, high burnout, workplace violence and stressful environment are the major cause behind shortage of staff members. These aspects are negatively impacting performance of nurses and creating difficulties in performing their roles and responsibilities. Consistent developmental and professional growth opportunities should be given to nurses as this complies with improving their skills and motivates them to retain for longer term. In accordance with Benner's Novice to Expert theory experience and education are considered as an important aspect that contributes in enhancing nursing skills (Lu et al, 2022). Healthcare settings should focus on these two contextual domains and accordingly, training session for providing education to nurses must be organized. This leads to improve performance of nurses and increases retention rate. However, when healthcare setting faces shortage of workers then, there are no educational programmes are organized and this drastically impacts their performance in negative manner.

Despite experiencing workforce shortage it is important to organize training programmes as this lead to improve morals of nurses and motivates them to perform in effective manner. Inadequate staff management leads to increase burden on team and often increases medical errors; this leads to create drastic influence on patient outcomes (Alsabri et al, 2022). During presentation, I have assessed negative impact of workforce shortage on team performance and how it influence patient outcomes. I recognized that it is important to focus on this area and such steps should be taken that assures support to nurses and guides them in crucial situation. An effective leadership approach should be integrated in healthcare settings as this leads to ensure support to nurses and reduces their turnover also; it creates positive impact on team performance.

Conclusion

This reflection led to develop significant insights for me and I have become able to analyse about major issues related to HCWs. I got to know that it is important to address the challenges comprising with manpower shortage and significant support must be ensured to nurses. Stressful environment, workplace violence, bullying, lack of growth opportunities and increasing workload creates negative impact on nurses morals and contributes in increasing turnover rate. It is important for healthcare settings to invest in training and developmental programmes so nurses can get opportunities related to professional development. Furthermore, there is need to foster inter-professional collaboration as this leads to develop an effective environment at setting. Through this reflection I have analysed that nurses responsibilities are not limited to looking upon patients; they seeks for future developmental opportunities and therefore, such programmes should be organised. I am going to use this learning in future while performing nursing role and I will communicate HCWs shortage issues with senior leaders so that significant decision could be taken.

Action Plan

In future I will emphasise on improving own leadership and resilience abilities; this will support me in facing crucial situations related to manpower shortage. In order to improve leadership abilities; I will participate in leadership programmes and within next nine months I will complete leadership courses as well. This led to enhance own understanding related to leadership and further I would be able to develop leadership skills (Al-Mugheed et al, 2022). Furthermore, this reflection enabled me to understand the importance of resilience abilities; I got to know that nurse should have effective resilience capabilities so they can tackle drastic situations with settings. For improving own resilience capabilities I will practice mindfulness and in next six months I am going to develop this skill. Furthermore, I will take feedback from seniors and assess whether I have become able to develop skills or not.

Conclusion

Conclusively; I can say that I have developed significant insights related to shortage of HCWs and its impacts on team outcomes and patient health. It is important to organise training programmes and consequently, opportunities for professional growth should be provided to nurses. Hence, this leads to reduce high turnover and further increases retention rate of nurses.

References

Books and Journals

Ahmadpour, N., Shariati, A., & Moghadam, M. P. (2025). Effect of narrative writing based on Gibbs’ reflective model on the empathy and communication skills of nursing students. BMC Medical Education, 25(1), 10.

Al-Mugheed, K., Bayraktar, N., Al-Bsheish, M., AlSyouf, A., Jarrar, M. T., AlBaker, W., & Aldhmadi, B. K. (2022, April). Patient safety attitudes among doctors and nurses: associations with workload, adverse events, experience. In Healthcare (Vol. 10, No. 4, p. 631). Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute.

Alsabri, M., Boudi, Z., Lauque, D., Dias, R. D., Whelan, J. S., Östlundh, L., ... & Bellou, A. (2022). Impact of teamwork and communication training interventions on safety culture and patient safety in emergency departments: a systematic review. Journal of patient safety, 18(1), e351-e361.

Cho, H., & Steege, L. M. (2021). Nurse fatigue and nurse, patient safety, and organizational outcomes: A systematic review. Western Journal of Nursing Research, 43(12), 1157-1168.

Lu, L., Ko, Y. M., Chen, H. Y., Chueh, J. W., Chen, P. Y., & Cooper, C. L. (2022). Patient safety and staff well-being: organizational culture as a resource. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(6), 3722.

Montgomery, A. J., Van der Doef, M., Panagopoulou, E., & Leiter, M. P. (2021). Connecting health care worker well-being, patient safety and organizational change: the triple challenge. In Connecting Healthcare Worker Well-Being, Patient Safety and Organisational Change: The Triple Challenge (pp. 1-7). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Naseem, S., Naseem, S., & Amir, Z. (2024). Effect of Staff Shortage on Patient Safety and Quality of Care. Annals of Human and Social Sciences, 5(4), 158-164.

Ross, J. (2022). Nursing shortage creating patient safety concerns. Journal of perianesthesia nursing, 37(4), 565-567.