The introduction of a new profession to the health care system, such as a healthcare assistant, forces modern nurses to find themselves in the new reality because the patient's well-being depends on the positive cooperation of these professional groups. The professional competences of a healthcare assistant overlap with the competences of a nurse in the field of basic care. In practice, the implementation of cooperation between representatives of care professions is not easy, but thanks to the transposition of transparent provisions into Polish legislation, all members can fully fulfill their roles. This requires the introduction of an efficient model, and nurses have shown that the majority of surveyed healthcare assistants (77%) consider cooperation with nurses to be good. Other studies indicate that the potential of healthcare assistants is not fully used. In order to maintain a high level of cooperation, the involvement of the nursing community in updating knowledge about the competences of healthcare assistants, which is changing as a result of legal regulations, becomes indispensable. On the other hand, assistants are required to strictly respect the scope of these competences and be responsible for the activities undertaken.

Key words: nurse, healthcare assistant, competences, cooperation.