Patient advocacy: definitions and challenges
Nurses are obliged by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (2018a) Code to: 'Act as an advocate for the vulnerable, challenging poor practice and discriminatory attitudes and behaviour relating to their care'.
Platform 7 of the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s (2018b) Future Nurse: standards of proficiency for registered nurses, ‘coordinating care’, identifies how nurses should:
Facilitate equitable access to healthcare for people who are vulnerable or have a disability, demonstrate the ability to advocate on their behalf when required, and make necessary reasonable adjustments to the assessment, planning and delivery of their care
These requirements suggest that the role of the advocate is to speak up for people who are unable to represent themselves or to challenge poor practice.
This article considers some interpretations of what it might mean to act as a patient advocate as a nurse and offers the authors’ definition of this. The authors consider the
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