Abandonment Guideline

This is a revised practice guideline replacing the singular legacy Colleges documents on Abandonment. We requested feedback from nurses to ensure we developed a relevant and useful practice guideline that will support nurses to provide safe, competent, compassionate and ethical nursing services.

We requested feedback using an online survey and received responses from 29 nurses with half of the respondents having outstanding questions related to their professional accountability related to Abandonment after reviewing the guideline.

Thank you to all who provided feedback on the Abandonment Practice Guideline. Below explains how we incorporated this feedback into the guideline.

• In response to feedback requesting more context specific information related to NP practice, we added a new area to the guideline called Special Considerations for NPs.
• Requests for guidance for self-employed nurses was received and information was added. 
• Respondents wanted more information about what to do when there was risk to their safety. There is now information included about these situations. We also suggest nurses access the Duty to Provide Care Practice Guideline for further information.
• Feedback included wanting language that was related to union specific issues, e.g. contractual obligations, in the guideline. However, it would not be appropriate to add union information in our document as our mandate is protection of the public, while unions mandate is to protect and support their members.

Some nurses wanted very specific information about their practice context. Not all situations can be covered in a guideline but we encourage you to contact an NSCN Practice Consultant for further guidance if required at practice@nscn.ca.