Ethics in nursing: the way forward

Abstract

This series of articles has been developed with the intention of increasing nurses' awareness of ethics and ethical decision-making and clarifying the relationship between ethical thinking and effective nursing practice. A number of issues have been examined to show how ethics affects the professional role, but many other clinical and non-clinical aspects of nursing demand ethical exploration. In the final article in the series, the relevance of ethics to effective nursing is emphasised and suggestions for enhancing the integration of ethical decision-making into practice are made.