Читать книгу The Nursing Associate's Handbook of Clinical Skills - Группа авторов - Страница 70

Often described as the core activity in healthcare and social care, the concept of care can be difficult to pinpoint. When asked to define what nurses do, for example, the response is often that they care for people. While this is true, it is a very narrow idea of what caring is. In this text, there is a unit which focuses on the ‘care and support with hygiene and the maintenance of skin integrity’. This implies that caring is related to physical aspect of hands‐on support; however, if one acknowledges the therapeutic nature of care, as described earlier in this chapter, there is a suggestion of the unique bond that nurses and individuals have in the delivery of care. Indeed, when supporting hygiene and skin integrity needs, the nurse is delivering support within all the domains of health: physical, psychological, social, spiritual, mental, sexual and societal health. Care is overarching in this sense and cannot work in isolation without input from the other Cs. People should be able to trust in the care that is delivered, and care should be timely, respectful, and competently delivered, with the person at the core of all interactions.