Aim The aim of this research was to explore how newly qualified nurses learn to organise, delegate and supervise care in hospital wards when working with and supervising healthcare assistants. It was part of a wider UK research project to explore how newly qualified nurses recontextualise the knowledge they have gained during their pre-registration nurse education programmes for use in clinical practice.

Method Ethnographic case studies were conducted in three hospital sites in England. Data collection methods included participant observations and semi-structured interviews with newly qualified nurses, healthcare assistants and ward managers. A thematic analysis was used to examine the data collected.

Findings Five styles of how newly qualified nurses delegated care to healthcare assistants were identified: the do-it-all nurse, who completes most of the work themselves; the justifier, who over-explains the reasons for decisions and is sometimes defensive; the buddy, who wants to be everybody’s friend and avoids assuming authority; the role model, who hopes that others will copy their best practice but has no way of ensuring how; and the inspector, who is acutely aware of their accountability and constantly checks the work of others.

Conclusion Newly qualified nurses require educational and organisational support to develop safe and effective delegation skills, because suboptimal or no delegation can have negative effects on patient safety and care.