Basic Nursing and Patient Care Skills
Overview
Basic Nursing and Patient Care Skills tests the routine care you would perform under supervision: vital signs, hygiene, positioning, intake–output charting and pressure-ulcer prevention. Marks come from correct technique, normal ranges and safe priorities.
Vital signs
- Temperature: oral, axillary, tympanic or rectal; report above 38 °C as fever.
- Pulse: count for a full minute; note rate, rhythm and volume. Normal adult 60–100/min.
- Respiration: count for one minute with the patient unaware; normal 12–20/min.
- Blood pressure: cuff at heart level, correct cuff size, patient rested; avoid an arm with an IV line, dialysis fistula or lymphoedema.
Positioning and skin care
- Fowler and semi-Fowler: head raised, for breathlessness and feeding.
- Lateral and Sims: for unconscious or bedridden patients, to relieve pressure.
- Turn a bedridden patient at least every two hours; keep skin clean and dry; use an air or water mattress.
- Pressure-ulcer sites: sacrum, heels, elbows, occiput, hips and shoulders.
Worked example
An elderly bedridden patient has a red, unbroken area over the sacrum that does not blanch. Reasoning: this is a stage 1 pressure ulcer. The answer should include two-hourly repositioning, offloading the area, keeping skin dry, a pressure-relieving mattress, and documenting and reporting - not massage of the red area.
Traps that cost marks
- Counting respiration for 15 seconds and multiplying when the rhythm is irregular - count a full minute.
- Taking blood pressure on the arm with an intravenous line.
- Charting intake and output without matching the time period or recording urine colour.