5 Rights Of Delegation In Nursing

When you are charge nurse/team leader, making assignments is pure delegation. For example, I worked with Nurse M. and she was amazing when it came to taking care of patients who were confused, cantankerous, or agitated. She always seemed to know the right thing to say, in the right tone, and she had a way of establishing mutual goals and expectations. Most of the time, at the end of her shift, the patient would be calmer, relaxed and more willing to work with the nurses.

Assigning Nurse M. these types of patients fit perfectly with the Five Rights of Delegation. The Five Rights of Delegation were identified by the American Nurses Association (ANA) and the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN). These rights include; right task, right circumstances, right person, right direction/communication, and right level of supervision (Marquis & Huston, 2015).

Right task, refers to a task that is delegable for a specific patient. The charge nurse delegates care of a patient to a specific nurse. Right circumstances, refers to appropriate patient setting, available resources, and other relevant factors considered. This specific patient type was usually not a harm to his/herself but required hospital care. Right person, states the right person is delegating the right task to the right person to be performed on the right person. In this example, the charge nurse would assign this type of patient to Nurse M. because she knew how to provide the right care. Right