Reflective essay on confidentiality

The subject I intend to reflect upon is confidentiality within a professional healthcare setting. Confidentiality formed a part of our professional issues lectures and it piqued my interest due to how differently it is interpreted within healthcare as opposed to education, which is my background. In an educational setting I was taught repeatedly that I could never ensure confidentiality between myself and a child. Comparing that to what I have now learnt in healthcare, this seemed to me almost the opposite way of working as I was used to and so I wish to reflect upon this.
I intend to look at why confidentiality is so important within healthcare and how it relates to the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s (NMC) Code. I will look at the strategies in place to protect the privacy of healthcare users, including the areas where confidentiality is even more important. I will also be looking at the various occasions that arise in which a confidentiality can be breached and who should be informed in these cases and finally I hope to look at a case study where confidentiality was breached and use that information to help guide me to make better choices in the future.
Jasper (2011) tells us that reflection is the ability to see ourselves both physically and metaphorically. She also states that reflection can be looking again at something or in a different way. Somerville and Keeling tell us that reflection is the study of our thoughts, actions and focusing on our interaction and environments with the intention of fully seeing ourselves (Nursing Times, 2004).
Bulman & Schutz (2008) talk of reflection as being a tool to review experience, so that it may be “described, analysed [and] evaluated” then used to influence future practice. Sully & Dallas (2010) state that reflection is essential in the nurse’s development into sound and responsive professionals and they cite Benner (2001) who stated that nursing cannot expand or fully develop without the practice of reflection.

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