Introduction
Health and social care is defined as a complicated network of activities, guidelines and relations in numerous health and social care settings, highlighting the geographical facets of care provision as well as delivery. In the domain of health and social care, continuing professional development is a procedure of forming and upholding professional skills, proficiency and capabilities (Masterson etal, 2022). Working in such field encompasses of utilising abilities, knowledge and comprehending altogether in order to handle complex and demanding scenarios within a sympathetic and caring manner. This report will be describing the requirement for competencies in working as a Nurse and it will also involve preparation of a case study in order to research reflective practice. Lastly, the report will include plan along with the strategies that contribute in the personal development.
Task 1- Report
Duties and responsibilities of own work role
The work of a nurse is vital in offering quality assistance and healthcare to patients. Nurses are commended with an extensive range of responsibilities which substantially donate to patient treatment and care. Such duties frequently involve, analysing situation of patient and keeping record of noteworthy indications, managing treatments and medications as agreed, helping with diagnostic process and tests, and keeping an eye at the progress of the patient (Aspinall et al, 2024). Along with this, other duties of nurse involve offering emotional assistance and ease to patients and also their close ones, as well as confirming their safety and encouraging infection control. Moreover, a substantial segment of this job covers direct patient communication and care.
Nurses have responsibilities such as forming relations with patient, comprehending their requirements and offering individualised care. This involves helping with day-to-day activities and individual hygiene, directing medications and handling pain relief, and checking and keeping report of changes in the condition of patients. Further, this also includes offering education and mentorship on handling present health situations and cooperating with patients and also their relatives in order to form care plans. Additionally, nurses work closely with the other healthcare providers to confirm thorough and organized care. This encompasses of interacting and cooperating with therapists, doctors or other specialists, taking part in integrative group meetings for discussing about patient care, and exchanging updates and information related to improvement of patient’s health (Van Schothorst–van Roekel etal, 2021). It also includes offering assistance and support when medical procedures are taking place, as well as giving information while creation of treatment plans of patients. Overall, role of nurse is significant in encouraging wellbeing and retrieval of patient. Expertise, sympathy and commitment of nurses substantially influence the healthcare sector.
Examining the way relevant standards promote best practice
Relevant standards play an important role in encouraging best practices within health and social care domain. Such standards direct healthcare providers in offering effectual, sympathetic and safe care. These standards involve NHS (National health services) standards, which confirm that the patients get good quality care on the bases of the best accessible evidence. They are made to transform and improve health and social care services for each and every one. This confirms that every individual is treated with dignity, respect and also rights of human which everyone is authorized with are maintained. Such standards are developed upon five principles which are respect and dignity, involvement, wellbeing and support, compassion, as well as responsive care (NHS inform, 2025).
Additionally, another relevant standard which promote best practice in health and social care sector involve Nursing and Midwifery Council, code of conduct, which represents the professional standards which midwives, nurses, as well as nursing associates need to maintain to be registered or listed to practice within the UK. This code is designed around themes like practice in an effective way, encourage faith and professionalism, give priority to people, and preserve security and care. These themes make the midwives, nurses, as well as nursing associates responsible to treat people as individual persons and maintain their self-esteem, and to listen to individuals and work as per their concerns and preferences. Accountabilities as per the code involve ensuring social, psychological and physical needs of the people are evaluated and answered, acting in the best interest of individuals each and every time, and respecting their right to confidentiality and privacy (The Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2025).
Furthermore, Health and care professional council (HCPC) diverse standards underscore the professional skills, behaviours and knowledge need to perform a job role of a nurse, concentrating on upholding efficiency, encouraging patient wellbeing and functioning cooperatively (The Health and Care Professions Council, 2025). All these standards confirm that nurses and various other healthcare providers offer care which fulfil national outlooks for quality, safety, and more, that eventually is advantageous to healthcare system as well as patients.
Own belief systems, experiences and values affecting working practice
Professional values and ethics inform the nurses in offering quality care to the patients. Further, professional values not just only impact behaviour standards, and morals, although also permit them to develop an ethical outline. Personal belief systems, values and experiences have a substantial impact on the working practice of a nurse. For example, I have a belief in impartiality and equality because of which I operate with the patients with complete respect, irrespective of their conditions and background. Moreover, generally values of a nurse highlight empathetic care, as well as this is imitated in the manner they connect with patients, confirming they feel respected, value and secured. Additionally, for an instance, my personal experience involves taking care of a family fellow within a healthcare setting, which has assisted in comprehending the physical and emotional problems which patients deal with. Such experience enables nurses to sympathize greatly with the patients and also their close ones (van der Cingel, and Brouwer, 2021). Though, it is vital be known to the point that the personal beliefs could occasionally impact the care which nurses offer. Each and nurse need to be aware of such factors to make sure that their care remains respectful, impartial as well as aligned with the professional norms.
Task 2- Case Study
Importance of reflective practice
Reflective practice is acquiring knowledge from and through experience to learning new perceptions of practice and self. Within health and social care, it is very important for upholding quality care standards. Further, reflective practice is an important facet of managing health and social care, which enables healthcare providers to consistently augment their knowledge and alibies (Sherwood et al, 2024). Through imitating on their experiences, professional can recognise improvement areas, formulate new plans or strategies and augment the care quality they offer to their patients. In addition, reflective practice is crucial in consistently augmenting the quality of service offered, because it helps practitioners to recognise fields of growth and development within patient care, which results in improved outcomes. Also, reflective practice promotes transparent and open interaction and feedback among the group members, nurturing a cooperating work atmosphere. Through imitating on their personal preferences and acquiring knowledge from them, helps healthcare offers feel highly fulfilled in their duties and responsibilities, as well as are motivated to endure growing. Consistent reflection assists in offers secure and highly effectual care to the patients. Through encouraging practitioners to imitate their experiences, constantly augment and learn from mistakes, reflective practice assists in developing a culture of innovation and brilliance within the domain.
Reflective practice leading to improved working ways
Reflective practice is a chief tool within professional learning and development, and it has resulted into better and augmented working ways in numerous fields, involving health and social care. This practice enables professionals to gain knowledge from their experiences, through replicating on what was good and bad in the experience, which help them to recognise advancement areas and form plans to improve their performance. Reflective practice can also help in enlightening decision making skills of practitioners, as they can recognise patterns and comprehend the implications of their decisions, as well as take, improved, and informed decisions in further tasks (Patel and Metersky, 2022).
Furthermore, it can refine problem solving abilities of individuals, by imitating on the way issues were resolved in the earlier times, professional can formulate more effectual plans in order to handle same or similar problems in the upcoming time. Moreover, reflective practice could result into augmented working ways through promoting and cultivating consistent learning. For example, after dealing with an issue I might imitate on the way I managed the circumstances and also recognise the ways in which I can augment such way of working in alike scenarios in future. Being a nurse, such process will help to familiarise to evolving situations and augment the progress of patients.
Importance of evaluating own performance
Performance assessment is crucial for promoting professional as well as personal development. Nursing self-assessment or evaluation is a pervasive experience among nursing practitioners, as it permits them to imitate on their career components, professional growth and performance. Analysing own performance is important for upholding and augmenting the professional practice as a nurse. This assists nurses to evaluate whether they are taking care and fulfilling the requirements of the patients, and at the same time they are adhering the professional norms. Self-assessment aids nurses to recognise their strengths, like communication skills, clinical skills, and areas where there is need for improvement, such as leadership skills, delegation abilities (Martzoukou et al, 2024). This confirms that a nurse is uplifting professionally and offering the ideal possible care. Overall, evaluating personal performance is important, as it offers several benefits, which involves feeling highly involved in the assessment procedure, gaining better perceptions and putting in place future improvement objectives, feeling highly self-assured about their skills, improving capacity development, forming an inquisitive perspective in order to solve problems effectively and feel greater inspired to acquire new abilities.
Role of feedback in evaluating own performance and inform development
Procuring feedback and utilising it to analyse own performance, as well as to inform growth or development is a crucial approach for confirming that a nurse offers great quality care and assistance. Through analysing and using feedback in an effective manner, professionals involving nurses can improve their knowledge, performance and competencies. Feedback from patients, co-workers and administration is precious in analysing the working practice as a nurse. This offers healthcare professionals with an external viewpoint on domains which they might not have observed, and it also assists them to notice domains which need growth. Constructive feedback, like recommendations on augmenting patient interaction or care, is crucial for working as a healthcare provider (Sherwood et al, 2024). This also assists in informing professional development and learning, and coach for concentrating on particular advancements fields. In order to evaluate the performance through feedback seek feedback, comprehend it, imitate on it, search for areas to improve and develop an action strategy. In addition, feedback informs growth though recognising strong areas, underlining weak areas, offering guidance and encouraging advancement.
Sources of support for planning and reviewing own development
Strategizing and going through own growth or development is an essential portion of professional as well as personal development. There exist many support sources which can help individuals like nurses in such procedure. Coaches are experienced people who offer mentorship, feedback as well as assistance. Another source of support is supervisors, who gives useful perceptions in relation to the performance of workforce and also suggest possible fields where they need to improve. Professional regulators like Nursing and Midwifery Council, can also be source of support, these supply resource in order to help individuals to continuously improve in professional terms, involving workshops, networking event, training and development courses (Archyangelio, 2024). Training and development programs are also one of the source which support for planning and reviewing growth as a nurse. Goals of such staff development programs in nursing is assisting each and every nurse to augment performance within their position, and also helping them to gain professional as well as personal capabilities which increase the probability of career progression.
Task 3- Development Plan And Report
Demonstrating my ability to reflect on practice
Reflecting or imitating on own practice is a very curial factor of professional growth, permitting healthcare professional involving nurse to evaluate their own performance, augment their capabilities and gain knowledge and understanding from their experiences (Billings, and et.al., (2021). Through taking into account the circumstances where I felt that I need to improve or situations where I felt fruitful, I could acquire a lot of knowledge from such situations. For an instance, post handling a hectic day with a large number of patients, I can imitate on the way I managed the condition, as well as recognise what were the learning or successful aspects. Such imitations aid me to improve my abilities and methodology to offering care to quality patients.
Evaluation of own competence, understanding and knowledge
Evaluating own competence, understanding and knowledge against pertinent standards is very important as it confirms that an individual is working as per the standards, and if any case one’s way of working contradicts with the standards, they can improve it by developing corrective measures straight away. I frequently assess my practice in contradiction of professional norms or standards such as Nursing and Midwifery Council code of conduct and more. This makes sure that I am on the right track and fulfilling the needed requirements within the fields of team working, interaction and patient care (Reynolds et al, 2024). Through analysing my abilities and knowledge together within such standards, I could get to know field where I also require to improve through extra training or assistance, so that I confirm that my understanding, knowledge and ability is in line with the pertinent quality standards.
Reviewing own learning needs and development opportunities
It is essential for professional to analyse their development opportunities and learning requirements, as the requirement of oneself and also the organisation they are working with, will alter or change with the time (Lejeune, Beausaert, and Raemdonck, 2021). I review my learning requirement on regular basis, while concentrating on zones which I feel I need to improve and also I not self-assured about. For instance, through self-evaluation I got to know that I require to refine my learning in relations to new medical tools and technologies or to augment my interpersonal skills to offer patient more emotional assistance.
Personal Development Plan
|
Goal |
Strategy |
Resources |
Timeline |
|
Improving knowledge about new medical technologies |
I will purse short-term nursing course, attend workshops learn from my professional coach. |
Online resources like videos, e-books and articles. |
8 months |
|
Developing interpersonal skills |
I will exercise active listening and empathy, take part in role playing set-ups, and enrol in online course to improve such skills. |
Online resources like sites offering online courses, and videos. |
5 months |
Conclusion
As per the above discussion, it can be concluded that, reflection allows professional to evaluate their success, failures and actions, resulting into continuous enhancement in the practice. Through considering things which worked great and which need improvement, an individual can improve its practices and approaches to turn out to be highly effective. This report has highlighted duties and responsibilities of working as a nurse, examined the way pertinent standards encourages best practices, and the way working practice has been affected by own values and belief systems. Further, another section of assessment focused on reflective practice, its importance, and more. Towards the end, the report evaluated and demonstrates own ability to reflect on practice, own competence, knowledge and understanding, learning needs and development opportunities, and involved preparation of personal development plan.
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References
Books and Journals
Archyangelio, A., 2024. International Healthcare Professionals' Handbook: A Success Guide to Working in the UK for Nurses, Midwives and Allied Health Professionals-E-Book: A Success Guide to Working in the UK for Nurses, Midwives and Allied Health Professionals. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Aspinall, C., Slark, J., Parr, J., Pene, B. J. and Gott, M., 2024. The role of healthcare leaders in implementing equitable clinical academic pathways for nurses: An integrative review. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 80(8), 3119-3133.
Billings, J., Ching, B. C. F., Gkofa, V., Greene, T. and Bloomfield, M., 2021. Experiences of frontline healthcare workers and their views about support during COVID-19 and previous pandemics: a systematic review and qualitative meta-synthesis. BMC health services research, 21, 1-17.
Lejeune, C., Beausaert, S. and Raemdonck, I., 2021. The impact on employees’ job performance of exercising self-directed learning within personal development plan practice. The international journal of human resource management, 32(5). pp.1086-1112.
Martzoukou, K., Luders, E.S., Mair, J., Kostagiolas, P., Johnson, N., Work, F. and Fulton, C., 2024. A cross‐sectional study of discipline‐based self‐perceived digital literacy competencies of nursing students. Journal of advanced nursing, 80(2), pp.656-672.
Masterson, D., Areskoug Josefsson, K., Robert, G., Nylander, E. and Kjellström, S., 2022. Mapping definitions of co‐production and co‐design in health and social care: a systematic scoping review providing lessons for the future. Health Expectations, 25(3), pp.902-913.
Patel, K.M. and Metersky, K., 2022. Reflective practice in nursing: A concept analysis. International Journal of Nursing Knowledge, 33(3). pp.180-187.
Reynolds, R., Edge, D., Neill, S., Hayward, M., Alexandropoulou, M. and Carey, M., 2024. Impact of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (2018) future nurse: Standards of proficiency for registered nurses on children's nursing curriculum–A cross-sectional study. Nurse Education Today, 140, p.106284.
Sherwood, G., Cherian, U.K., Horton-Deutsch, S., Kitzmiller, R. and Smith-Miller, C., 2024. Reflective practices: meaningful recognition for healthy work environments. Nursing Management, 31(6).van der Cingel, M. and Brouwer, J., (2021). What makes a nurse today? A debate on the nursing professional identity and its need for change. Nursing philosophy, 22(2). p.e12343.
Van Schothorst–van Roekel, J., Weggelaar-Jansen, A. M. J., Hilders, C. C., De Bont, A. A., and Wallenburg, I., 2021. Nurses in the lead: a qualitative study on the development of distinct nursing roles in daily nursing practice. BMC nursing, 20, 1-11.
Online
NHS inform, 2025. Online. Available through: <https://www.nhsinform.scot/care-support-and-rights/health-rights/health-and-social-care-standards/health-and-social-care-standards/#:~:text=support%20and%20wellbeing-,The%20Standards,support%20and%20care%20for%20me>
The Health and Care Professions Council, 2025. Online. Available through: <https://www.hcpc-uk.org/standards/>
The Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2025. Online. Available through: <https://www.nmc.org.uk/standards/code/>
