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Introduction.
Staff shortages are among one of the many ills that ail the healthcare system. In some
situations, the available staff may not be sufficient enough to tend to each patient whilst still
maintaining the provision of the highest quality of care. The US Bureau of Labour Statistics
projects that for the shortage in nursing staff in the US to be compensated, then the country
needs to employ an additional 11 Million Nurses by 2030. Considering these glaring
shortages, Nurses may in one event or another seek help and services from other people to
offer care to all patients in the unit they manage (Barrow & Sharma, 2018). Nurses are
allowed to delegate duties to other individuals; as long as the personals delegated to, are
approved by the law. Unlicensed Assistive personnel (UAPs) are an example of such
individuals. UAPs refer to individuals with considerable knowledge of healthcare and patient
management. As their name suggests, they are unlicensed, though they can perform some
basic nursing procedures under supervision. As such, this paper aims to comprehensively
discuss the roles of these UAPs, roles of registered nurses in supervising UAPs and their
functions in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) environment.
Roles of UAPs.
At my current working station, the state laws allow for the existence of UAPs. The
state has a massive shortage of nurses and hence. We constantly felt overwhelmed and
overworked in the unit since the patients are more than we could handle. After considerable
discussions, it was agreed that the unit allows the registered nurses to enrol and delegate
some of the basic roles to UAPs. According to my state`s law, UAPs are allowed to carry out
the functions such as clerical duties, ambulation, feeding, bathing, mouth care, data gathering
and assisting patients with other Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) (Nancy,2018). UAPs
carry all these under the supervision of a registered nurse. The extent of their practice