Competence in the clinical setting: issues in nursing practice

Abstract: Nurses, midwives and health visitors collectively represent the largest grouping in the NHS (DHS 1993).l In 1992 the United Kingdom Central Council (UKCC), the central registering body for nurses revised an advisory paper, Administration of medicines (issued in 1986). The Standards for the Administration of Medicine recognised the growing use of complementary therapies within nursing practice, with paragraphs 38 and 39 referring explicitly to the administration of herbal, homoeopathic and complementary and alternative therapies.Increasing utilisation of complementary therapies within nursing raises issues associated with competence and efficacy. Additionally, discussion centres upon whether complementary therapies represent the expanding role of nursing practice, or a conceptually distinct emergence of specialised nursing roles based upon collaborative, multidisciplinary approaches to health care.This paper describes some of the key issues at the forefront of the debate concerning the utilisation of complementary therapies within mainstream nursing practice, and makes some suggestions concerning the way forward for the Provision of academic and practical competence in complementary medicine.

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