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The Code: Professional standards of practice and behaviour for nurses, midwives and nursing associates - The Nursing and Midwifery Council

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Read and download the Code for nurses, midwives and nursing associates, and see supporting resources.

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Please see the following list of authoritative resources on confidentiality. If you are having any difficulties applying this to your role, please call us.

Find out more about joining the RCN.

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Confidentiality | Advice guides | Royal College of Nursing

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Please see the following list of authoritative resources on confidentiality. If you are having any difficulties applying this to your role, please call us. Find out more about joining the RCN. ﻿

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NMC Online, our HEI portal, online payments and our overseas applications portal will be unavailable between 21:00-23:30 on Friday 20th October while we carry out essential maintenance. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

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Please see the following list of authoritative resources on record keeping. If you are having any difficulties applying this to your role, please call us.

Find out how you can join the RCN's eHealth Forum.

Retention and destruction

In principle clinical information should be retained for a minimum period of eight years. GP records should be kept for 10 years after a patient's death.

In the case of a child record, the records should be retained until the 25th birthday (or 26th birthday if the patient was 17 at the conclusion of the treatment).

Please see:

Work diaries

The Information Governance Alliance Records Management Code of Practice for Health and Social Care 2016 provides comprehensive detail of best practice in record keeping in relation to information governance, data protection and Caldicott principles. The guidance states that diaries can be considered part of a patient or client's clinical record. Guidance on the retention of health records will apply if diaries are used in this way.

When dealing with children, Health Visitor or District Nurse diaries should be kept for 2 years after the end of year to which the diary relates. Any patient specific information should be transferred to the patient record. Any notes made in the diary as an 'aide memoire' must also be transferred to the patient record as soon as possible.

It is important to also check the employer's policy on work diaries.

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Record keeping | Advice guides | Royal College of Nursing

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Please see the following list of authoritative resources on record keeping. If you are having any difficulties applying this to your role, please call us. Find out how you can join the RCN's eHealth Forum. In principle clinical information should be retained for a minimum period of eight years.

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Principles of nursing practice | Royal College of Nursing

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The eight Principles are used to describe what everyone, from nursing staff to patients, can expect from nursing.

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Being a volunteer or 'Good Samaritan'

There are two aspects that need to be considered:

Legal duty

There is no legal duty to volunteer help in an emergency situation. The legal duty of care generally only arises when a practitioner has assumed some responsibility for the care of the patient concerned (see above). Accordingly, if a nurse is at a road traffic accident, they do not have a legal duty of care to offer aid to any person injured in the accident. Many people mistakenly assume that nurses have first aid training which would assist the injured person. This is not always the case.

Professional duty

However, registered nurses, midwives and nursing associates should be aware that the NMC Code places a professional duty on them to provide appropriate assistance, within their sphere of knowledge and competence.

Paragraph 15 of the Code states:

"Always offer help if an emergency arises in your practice setting or anywhere else

To achieve this, you must:

15.1 only act in an emergency within the limits of your knowledge and competence

15.2 arrange, wherever possible, for emergency care to be accessed and provided promptly

15.3 take account of your own safety, the safety of others and the availability of other options for providing care"

Wherever possible, a registrant should arrange for emergency care to be accessed and provided promptly. They should always take account of their own safety, the safety of others and the availability of other options for providing care. This professional duty may vary in practice, depending on the circumstances and the expertise of the nurse concerned, from simply providing some psychological comfort to the injured person, through to offering more hands-on care.

This is illustrated in the following examples:

if a nurse has an understanding of the impact of moving a person with spinal injuries, then they may be expected to volunteer that knowledge at the scene of the accident

if a registered nurse with no midwifery training or knowledge came across a woman in labour their professional duty of care may be limited to reassuring the woman, making her comfortable and then calling an ambulance, acting within their competence.

As employer indemnity would not apply to an emergency situation outside the workplace, the RCN indemnity scheme does cover you for Good Samaritan acts subject to conditions and exclusions.

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Duty of care | Advice guides | Royal College of Nursing

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An advice guide for nursing staff on the duty of care covering definitions, emergency situations and conflict with employer's instructions.

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The principles of accountability and delegation are relevant to all members of the nursing team. Whether you're a nurse, health care assistant (HCA), assistant practitioner (AP), nursing associate (NA) or student, this page tells you what you need to know.

Accountability

Health service providers are accountable to the criminal and civil courts to make sure their activities meet legal requirements. In addition, employees are accountable to their employer to follow their contract of duty. Registered practitioners are also accountable to regulatory bodies in terms of standards of practice and patient care. Registered nurses, midwives and registered nursing associates are professionally accountable to the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).

The law imposes a duty of care on practitioners, whether they are HCAs, APs, nursing associates, students, registered nurses, doctors or others. The duty of care applies whether they are performing straightforward activities such as bathing patients or undertaking complex surgery.

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Accountability and delegation | Royal College of Nursing

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It is vital that each member of the nursing team is clear about their level of accountability and that registered staff are confident when delegating tasks.