Dx and takethe5th, thank you for enlightning me with your informative reply.
Dx, as far as I know, the UKCC has been disbanded, and the public is now protected by the new Nursing & Midwifery Council.
You may recall that the UKCC was charged with protecting the public interests, although it did seem to lose quite a bit of credibility in the early and mid nineties. Didn't they let a rapist back on the register ? Hadn't the guy been convicted of raping several patients with mental health problems ? I think that he was reinstated as being fit to practice after a couple of years.
So the UKCC changed its name to the NMC. (Like Windscale did. -same s"*t, different hat).
Takethe5th, thank you for reminding me about my duty of care. As you rightly state, nurses have a duty of care at all times, and, as you point out, it is a sad day when doctors (?and nurses), are prevented from acting as they feel they should, because of the fear of litigation.
Unfortunately, your reply does not really answer my original point. It is all very well the NMC stating that they won't hold be professionally culprible, but they won't be the ones suing me.
I'm heartened that you can find it so easy to seperate professional responsibility from professional indemnity, but unfortunately living and working and flying in the real world (I left the cosy world of secondary care several years ago), makes it difficult for me to seperate the two.
So my question still stands, who would indemnify me if an airliner passenger suffered resultant damage because of my negligent actions ?
PS would I perform first aid if needed.....of course I would, but I'd let some other fool come rushing forward shouting "Its ok I'm a nurse !"