What are the 5 priorities of care

Planning for your future care (advance care planning) gives you the opportunity to think about, talk about and write down your wishes, preferences and priorities for your care. This includes how you would like to be cared for towards the end of your life. You can include anything that is important to you, no matter how insignificant it may appear. 

Advance care planning can help you and your carers (family, friends and professionals who are involved in your care) understand what is important to you. The plan helps you to discuss your views with those who are close to you. It will help you to be clear about the decisions you make and keep a written record of your wishes so that they can be carried out at the appropriate time. Recording your wishes and preferences for care helps to make sure that your wishes and preferences are taken into account. You can choose who you share this information with.

An advance care plan can be created at any time. It is a good way to make sure your wishes are recorded and allows a secure approach on life.

To help you with your planning we have created an 'Advance care plan' that you can fill in, dowload a copy here:  Advance Care Planning (ACP) booklet Version Four[pdf] 2MB or request a copy by contacting the PALS team on or 0800 9178504.

For Easy Read information please see the below documents. 

Advance Care Planning Easy Read leaflet[pdf] 181KB

Easy Read - Advance Care Planning booklet[pdf] 5MB

Nursing care is often the place where patients spend the last phase of their life. Many people are there wilfully, and many are there due to unfortunate circumstances that are out of their control.

Whatever the case, this puts the nursing care institutions in a position of high responsibility. A lot of the situations that come up there are quite challenging. Therefore, a proper protocol of priority lists is followed so that any deterrent situation is tactfully dealt with. 

In this article, we shall expand upon the responsibilities and priorities of nursing care. Let’s have a look at them right away:

• What are the responsibilities of nursing care?
  • Promoting comfort
  • Relief of pain
  • Support for patients and families
  • Decision Making 
• The priorities
  • Recognizing that someone is dying
  • Communicating sensitively with them and their family
  • Involving them in decisions
  • Supporting them and their family
  • Creating an individual plan of care that includes adequate nutrition and hydration
• Final Words

What are the responsibilities of nursing care?

To sum it up efficiently, the responsibilities of nursing care involve displaying compassion and making things easy. 

As mentioned above, nursing care homes have several sensitive patients. This means that there’s a need to take care of a lot of things. 

Amongst the primary responsibilities of nursing care are the following:

Promoting comfort

Nursing care should make the patients feel warm and comforted. Surely, there’s no substitute for the warmth that comes from the family and loved ones. However, the nurses must ensure that patients rest in the maximum possible comfort there. 

Relief of pain

A lot of patients at the nursing home are in miserable conditions. It is the duty of the nursing care to do their best to relieve them from the pain. 

Support for patients and families

Nursing care often serves as the bridge between families and patients. It is the duty of the nurses to ensure fluid communication. 

Decision Making 

Other responsibilities of nursing care include decision-making situations. It lies upon them to make sure that the decision-making formalities for the final stages of a patient’s life are handled as early and efficiently as possible. 

Now that you understand the responsibilities, let’s see the priorities of nursing care:

Recognizing that someone is dying

This is the prime. Nursing care needs to be very vigilant in such critical situations. Because that’s where quick action is needed. 

Communicating sensitively with them and their family

Most people have a negative reaction to death. Therefore, it is important that the news of demise is tactfully communicated to the families. Plus, if the patient is reasonably in sense at their time of death, then the nursing care needs to talk to them and make things easy for them as well.

Involving them in decisions

Nursing care isn’t always independent with their decisions regarding the patients. Therefore, it is vital that they adequately involve the family members in any decision that’s crucial.

Supporting them and their family

This one goes without saying. Nursing care isn’t doing a job properly if it isn’t offering adequate support to the patients and family members. 

Creating an individual plan of care that includes adequate nutrition and hydration

Patients at the nursing home have special nutritional needs. Plus, they also need the medications timely. 

Nursing care is liable to ensure that the patients are well-nourished and heal properly with medicines.

Final Words

Nursing care is a place for healing. With the right approach and support, it can truly make the lives of the patients easy and joyful. 

If you are looking for nursing care for yourself or for a loved one, then you’d now know what to look for before selecting the right nursing care.

What are the priorities of care?

What are the 5 priorities of nursing care?

What is a patient care priority?

Which of the following is the priority for nursing care?