Ethical values are essential for any healthcare professional. Ethics are moral principles that govern how the person or a group will behave or conduct themselves. The focus pertains to the right and wrong of actions and encompasses the decision-making process of determining the ultimate consequences of those actions.

Ethics within healthcare are important because healthcare professionals must recognize healthcare dilemmas, make good judgments and decisions based on their values while keeping within the laws that govern them. To practice competently with integrity, nurses, like all healthcare professionals, must have regulation and guidance within the profession.

The MANCOSA skillME Ethics for Healthcare Professionals (Nursing Professionals) short learning programme (SLP) has been developed by industry experts to equip nurses at all levels, who have their own set of personal ethics and morals, to recognise dilemmas in healthcare, make good judgement calls and decisions based on their values, while keeping within governing laws and legal frameworks.