6NH096: Enhancing Safety and Quality of Care in Adult Nursing Assignment Brief

6NH096 Assessment (100% Weighting, Meeting All Learning Outcomes)

A 2,500-word critical analysis of a patient safety incident.

Learning Outcomes

LO1 Apply the principles of risk management in maintaining a safe care environment.

LO2 Critically explore how human factors can influence and impact upon behaviour within teams, and the way in which this can affect health and safety when caring for individuals and families accessing adult nursing services.

LO3 Critically reflect on critical incidents including suggesting ways to instigate positive change to promote safety and quality of care in adult nursing care.

*All learning outcomes must be achieved to pass the assessment

6NH096 Detailed Assignment Brief

You are required to undertake a 2,500-word (+10% maximum word count) critical analysis of a patient safety incident. The patient safety incident will be chosen from those provided in the Canvas tile.

Using the structure set out below, you will identify, critically analyse and consider the circumstances that may have contributed to your chosen incident, and then make appropriate recommendations for enhancing the safety and quality of care of this aspect of clinical practice in the future.  You are required to underpin your work throughout by making reference to appropriate literature, such as national guidelines, policies, procedures- you should refer to the reading list in Leganto (use the reading list tab in the Canvas topic).

The required structure for your assignment is as follows:

Front page (not included in word count)

You must include the University recommended front page indicating your course, student number, word count and other elements.

• Please ensure that your work has 1.5 line spacing
• Font should be Arial and size 11
• Work should be written in the third person
• Do not upload your work as a PDF document, it must be uploaded as a Word Document
• Provide a reference list in the Harvard style, after the main assignment.

Introduction (Approx. 150 – 200 Words)

Provide a concise introduction to your chosen Patient safety incident and how you are going to address your learning outcomes, with reference to the PSIRF.  You should not include the full patient safety incident in your assignment.  Ensure that key terms are clearly introduced to set out what is discussed in main body of the assignment.

Make sure you are not repeating content in the introduction that you will say later in the assignment- this section provides an overview, and in the main body of the assignment, you go into more detail.

Main Body (Approx. 2000 Words) (LO1, LO2, LO3)

The main body of the assignment will be structured under the following three headings: insight, involvement, and improvement (approximately 600-700 words per heading).

• Under the ‘insight’ heading, introduce the importance of risk management in maintaining a safe care environment and reflect this to your patient safety incident. Clearly define the term critical incident and clearly discuss the relevance of this to your chosen patient safety incident, which is a serious adverse event.  Identify and discuss why your patient safety incident is not a critical incident.
  You will identify 3 factors that contributed to the outcome of your chosen patient safety incident.
• Under the ‘involvement’ heading, you must then justify and critically analyse ONE of the contributory factors identified in insight in detail using evidence from the literature. Introduce and explore how human factors can influence and impact on health and safety when caring for individuals and critically analyse these in relation to your ONE identified contributory factor.
• Under the ‘improvement’ heading, you will identify and justify 1 – 2 recommendation(s) for positive change in relation to your contributory factor identified above.

With respect to the insight and involvement headings, you must identify what you think are the circumstances (risks/risk management/human factors) that may have led to the patient safety incident, and then critically analyse the impact/effect of those circumstances.  In this way, you will be constantly referring to the aspects of the patient safety incident all the way through the main body.  Throughout the main body of your assignment, you need to ensure you are considering the relevance of the care environment where the patient safety incident occurred.

With respect to the improvement (recommendation(s)) heading, this should be drawn directly from your analysis of the patient safety incident. Here you are required to set out your suggestions for changes that would enhance safety and quality of care.  In this section, consider how you might make the changes, and what might affect the ability to make these changes.  Be as specific and focused as you can and use references to show what guidance/national standards exist to support your point.

All discussions within your critical analysis needs to relate to details within the patient safety incident you have selected, do not make any assumptions.

Conclusion (Approx. 150-200 Words)

The conclusion is a short section that ‘ties together’ your work.  You need to make sure you don’t introduce new information in this section- remember you are drawing together what you have said in the main body of the assignment.  In the conclusion you should identify the main issues that you identified that led to the patient safety incident and highlight the key learning points.

Reference List (Not Included In Word Count)

A full list of your references, correctly cited using the Harvard system as per University requirements.  For guidance, use the University library website, and/or cite the mrightonline

Reminder that you use relevant literature supporting your discussions throughout.