Legal System: Type of law, Torts and Liabilities in Nursing

1. LEGAL SYSTEM: TYPE OF LAW, TORTS AND
LIABILITIES
BY: AJESH KUMAR
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
PICTURE COURTESY
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2. Legal System: Type of law, Torts and
Liabilities
• Legal - Established by or
founded upon law or official
or accepted rules
• Law means a body of rules to
guide human action
• A knowledge of legal aspects
in nursing is absolutely
essential for each nurse to
safeguard self and clients
from legal complications.

3. Laws are
• “rules of conduct,
established and enforced by
authority, which prohibit
extremes in behaviour so
that one can live without fear
for oneself or one’s
property”. - By Sullivan and
Decker, 2001

4. Types of law
• Common law
– Created by judicial
decisions made in courts
when individual cases
are decided

5. • Protects the rights of
individual persons within our
society and encourage fair and
equitable treatment among
people

6. • Prevent harm to society
and provides
punishment for crimes

7. TORTS

8. TORTS
• Torts a civil wrong made
against a person or property
• A tort can be any of the
following :
– The denial of a person’s legal
right
– The failure to comply with a
public duty
– The failure to perform a
private duty that results in
harm to another.

9. Categories of torts
• Unintentional Torts
• Intentional Torts.

10. Intentional Torts
• any intentional acts that are
reasonably foreseeable to
cause harm to an
individual, and that do so.
Assault
Battery
Invasion of privacy
false imprisonment
intentional infliction of
emotional distress
fraud.

11. Assault:
• Assault occurs when
a person puts another
person in fear of a
harmful or offensive
contact.
• The victim fears and
believes that harm
will result as a result
of the threat.

12. Battery:
it is an intentional
touching of
another’s body
without the other’s
consent.

13. Fraud:
• it results from a
deliberate deception
intended to produce
unlawful gains.

14. False imprisonment:
• it occurs when a client
is not allowed to leave a
health care facility when
there is no legal
justification to detain
the client or when
restraining devices are
used without an
appropriate clinical
need.

15. Invasion of privacy:
• it includes violating
confidentiality
intruding on private
client or family
matters, and sharing
client information with
unauthorized persons
.

16. Unintentional Torts
• Malpractice
• Negligence

17. Negligence:
• It is conduct that falls
below the standard of
care that a reasonable
person ordinarily would
use in a similar
circumstances or it is
described as lack of
proper care and
attention carelessness.

18. Malpractice:
 failure to meet the
standards of acceptable
care which results in
harm to another person,

19. Types of Nursing Malpractice
• Medication errors
• Failure to follow a physician‘s
orders
• Delaying patient care and/or
failure to monitor a patient
• Incorrectly performing a
procedure, or trying to
perform a procedure without
training
• Documentation error
• Failure to get informed
patient consent

20. DO’S AND DON’TS FOR SAFE PRACTICE:
1. Do document all unusual incidences
2. Do report all unusual incidences
3. Do follow policies and procedures as established by your
employing agency.
4. Do perform procedures that you have been thought and
that are within the standard scope of your practice
5. Do not work as a nurse in state in which you are not
licensed
6. Do protect the patient from injury
7. Do not advice that is contrary to the doctor‘s order or
nursing care plan

21. ROLE AND FUNCTIONS OF NURSE
MANAGER IN LEGAL ISSUES.

22. ROLE AND FUNCTIONS OF NURSE
MANAGER IN LEGAL ISSUES.
• Serves as a role model by providing nursing care that
meets or exceeds accepted standards of care.
• Reports substandard nursing care to appropriate
authorities
• Fosters nurse-patient relationships that are
respectful, caring and honest thus reducing the
possibility of future lawsuits
• Joint and actively supports professional organizations
to strengthen the lobbying efforts of nurses in health
care legislation

23. ROLE AND FUNCTIONS OF NURSE
MANAGER IN LEGAL ISSUES.
• Practices nursing within the area of individual competence
• Prioritizes patients right and welfare first in decision making
• Delegates to subordinates wisely , looking at the managers
scope of practice and that of those they supervise.
• Increases staff awareness of intentional torts and assist them
in developing strategies to reduce their liability in these areas
• Provides educational and training opportunities for staff on
legal issues affecting nursing practice.

24. Summary
• Legal System: Type of law,
Torts and Liabilities

25. Research Article
• Title: Legal Awareness and Responsibilities of
Nursing Staff in Administration of Patient
Care in A Trust Hospital
• Journal: Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic
Research, 2013.
• Authors: Hemant Kumar, Gokhale, Kalpana
Jain, & D.R. Mathur

26. Introduction:
• The enactment of various legal provisions like
Consumer Protection Act, Right to Information
Act and standardization of procedures and
practices have brought nursing care under legal
ambit.
• Needless to say, the level of legal awareness
amidst nursing staff in India is abysmally low.
• Present study was undertaken to assess the level
of legal awareness and responsibilities of nursing
staff in administration of patient care at a trust
hospital.

27. Methods:
• The present study was carried out at the
Healthcare Management Institute (HMI), KEM
Hospital, Pune, in 2010 – 2011.
• An open ended questionnaire was prepared to
assess the level of legal awareness among the
nursing staff.
• The GNM and ANM (443 - ANM - 139, GNM –
304) nursing staff deployed at the nursing home
and general wards only were randomly screened
and specialty nurses were exempted.

28. Results:
• The knowledge on various legal provisions, as
was applicable to nursing, across all categories of
nurses which were under review, was found to be
poor.
• The nursing staff had poor knowledge on
patients’ rights and also on their legal obligations
towards patients.
• The GNM nurses fared better than ANM nurses.
• However, 46.67 % of nurses were found to be
aware about cases of omission or commission.

29. • The present study has substantiated the fact,
that nurses need to know the laws that govern
their profession, and that in the times to
come, it will be increasingly difficult to avoid
filing lawsuits against them.

30. CONCLUSION
• Every nurse should act as per the legal
guidelines for nursing practice while caring for
patients since negligence may cause a great
distress to nurse, the patient and others, as
well as to reputation of the institution.

31. THANK YOU….