ABSTRACT
This chapter examines an ethic of care as the main ethical approach to nursing practice in light of past and present developments in nursing ethics, and to briefly speculate whether or not it will survive within nursing in the future. It outlines of the future possibilities that may affect an ethic of care in nursing is offered. There are few better examples of the potential value of an ethic of care than in the profession of nursing. Several nurses realise that regardless of these polarising viewpoints, the healthcare context itself is becoming an ever more complex and difficult arena in which to deliver safe, efficient and ethical care. Nurses do indeed ‘have a care of’ and ‘care for’ their patients, and this is evident in the amount of attention that they are expected to pay to the needs of others who are in receipt of their services.
