Care plans for the operating department.

Very little, if any, of the care administered by the theatre staff within operating theatres has ever been fully documented. The person 'scrubbed' for the case and the circulating person accountable for the final swab, instrument and needle checks, sign their names in a ledger within theatre. A verbal exchange relating to the patient's operation, the dressings applied, any drains or implants in situ etc. may take place between the 'scub' person and the nurse into whose care the patient is to be entrusted. It is little wonder that we in theatres appear to have lost our identity as nurses and the role envisaged by our colleagues is one of a technician or that of being the surgeon's 'hand-maiden'! As stated in a previous Journal, 'The failure to define the nurse's role in the theatre can only mean one of two things--either nursing is not clearly demonstrated by theatre nurses or nursing does not exist within operating theatres'.