The Art of Clinical Supervision: the Traffic Light System for the Delegation of Care

Abstract

Objective: The Traffic Light System for the Delegation of Care was developed as a tool to assist student nurses and their allocated clinical supervisor on clinical shift, to determine their scope of practice for the delivery of patient care.

Setting: Western Australian health services.

Primary Argument: With each clinical placement student nurses are required to determine their scope of practice according to the health service polices and guidelines in conjunction with their own School of Nursing practice policies and legislation. Health service nurses support students in this scope of practice determination, but often themselves are perplexed by the different placement structure in each university course, and the lack of consistency across these.

Conclusion: Participant feedback and implementation of the tool supports its usefulness as a practical strategy to assist decision-making in the delegation of care to student nurses.