Professional Practice: Nursing Statutes and Regulations

Nursing statutes and regulations
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Nursing statutes and regulations
Like any other professional body, the nursing and healthcare profession has its standard laws and regulations that oversee and govern nursing practice activities on individual and group contexts as defined by the Nursing Practice Act (NPA). Through several provisions of this act, respective legislative bodies have the power and authority to discipline nurses that violate the laid down laws and standards. These statutes further help outline the scope of practice for respective registered and licensed nurses. However, these rules and regulations are primarily designed to help achieve the public safety attainment objective (Hamric et al., 2018). But as a result of continuous technological developments, autonomy in the nursing profession, increased demand, and extremely high expectations from patients, these statutes and regulations have consistently incurred endless changes over time in the race of achieving the main objective, which is basically ensuring and guaranteeing public safety. Hence, through these statutes, nurses can now be held accountable and responsible for both their actions and lack of actions on how they handle patients.
When formulating these laws and standards, responsible authorities are understood to pick and incorporate specific concepts from four major law sources: constitutional law, administrative law, common law, and civil law, which further entail aspects such as patents, contracts and torts. Through these laws and standards, we get a clear outline of the legitimate responsibilities of nurses, their scope of practice, and the legal impact of licensing on nursing practice, all within both the individual and group setting or context. Specifically, through the practice of licensing, these laws aim to ensure all nurses in possession of the licenses meet the expected professional requirements. They can face respective disciplinary actions upon violating set laws and standards when handling group or individual patients.
In individual contexts based on nursing professional statutes and regulations, it's always considered and understood to be the nurses&r...