Extended role of the nurse in ICU

A popular definition of a nurse's extended role is a procedure that is not covered in basic training and for which further training is needed (Rowden, 1987). Nurses' past need for certification and the concept that certain procedures are part of an extended role negates nurses' professionalism. Many nurses fear that the UKCC's abolishment of certification for extended role procedures will open the floodgates for unsafe practice and strip the profession of its protection. This survey analysed what procedures intensive care nurses were performing, how responsibility was related to status, whether certain procedures were classified as extending their role and how staff related these procedures to patient care, staffing levels and professionalism.