PCC302 Palliative care and life limiting conditions Assignment

Task Summary

In this assessment task, you are required to produce a written document of 2000 words (+/- 10%) where you will undertake research and critically analyse the information of one end-of-life issue. Please refer to the Task Instructions for details on how to complete this task.

Context

Patients (adults or children) may die under a number of different circumstances. Death may be sudden unexpected and tragic, or prolonged and protracted after the patient has lived with life limiting illness (Taylor, 2018). End-of-life care is provided by nurses and a team of other health professionals and informal carers (family or significant others), often when a person has only weeks, days or hours to live. A number of challenges may arise around end-of-life care and nurses need to understand these issues, along with what resources (including code of professional practice) and legal and ethical frameworks are in place to support their clinical practice.

Instructions

1. Discuss one (1) of the following ethical/legal issues relating to end-of-life care:
   • Withdrawal of treatment.
     • Is withdrawal of treatment considered euthanasia? Why or why not?
   • Withholding of active treatment e.g. antibiotics.
     • Is withholding of treatment a form of active or passive euthanasia. Why or why not?
   • Withholding of assisted nutrition.
     • Is withholding assisted nutrition, when a person is entering the last days of their life and refuses to eat or drink a ‘failure to care’?
   • Administration of opioid analgesia for pain or medication to manage restlessness, when it could result not only in the resolution of the patient’s symptoms, but also hasten patient’s death (doctrine of double effect). Myth or fact; the administration of opioids at the end-of-life to relieve pain results in the hastening of death by causing respiratory depression.
   • What are the legal requirements of obtaining an informed patient consent for the implementation or withdrawal of treatment at the end-of-life when the patient no longer has the capacity to provide consent, and/or there is no advance care plan in place and no proxy decision maker (determining capacity)?
   • What are the legal and ethical perspectives surrounding the capacity of children and young people under the age of 18 to make end-of-life decisions?
2. Research and critically analyse the information available on the chosen topic. The professional nursing standard documents (NMBA, 2018) and peer-reviewed literature, examining the legal and ethical factors surrounding your chosen end-of-life issue in an Australian context, can be used to support your discussion. Remember this is not an opinion or reflective piece. This is an academic piece where you are required to draw from peer reviewed literature to support your findings.
3. Write a 2000-word summary of the work.

Academic writing skills.

If you would like some assistance with academic writing and determining the difference between analysis and critical analysis, some information is provided below.

Suggested Essay format

Introduction (200 - 300 words).

• Provide background information regarding your chosen topic.
• Define any terms.
• Define your position on the challenge you have chosen and has it altered since the undertaking of research on this topic.

Body (1500 – 1600 words).

Using evidence based practice, policy or guidelines, discuss how you would manage a situation where your chosen issue had arisen? What are the legal and ethical frameworks that would guide your decision making?