NCLEX-RN Delegation and Prioritization Cheat Sheet (Free Printable)

Most students study delegation last, because it doesn't feel like real content. There's no lab value to memorize, no drug class to drill. It feels like common sense.

Then they sit the exam and get asked, over and over, which task goes to the LPN, which patient the nurse should see first, and what the charge nurse should do about the UAP who just did something out of scope.

Delegation lives inside Management of Care, which is 18% of the NCLEX-RN test plan, the largest single category on the exam. Nothing else is weighted that heavily. So we put the whole framework on one page: who can do what, and what comes first.

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The Rules That Decide Most Delegation Questions

Never delegate the nursing process. Assessment, teaching, evaluation, and clinical judgment stay with the RN, always. This is the single most tested idea on the sheet, and it's the trap in most wrong answers. A UAP can collect data (vital signs, intake and output, weights). Only the RN interprets it. An LPN can reinforce teaching the RN already started, but never initiate it.

Unstable means RN. The LPN gets stable patients with predictable outcomes. The moment a patient is new, acute, complex, or changing, the task comes back to the RN. If a question describes any shift in status, stop looking at scope of practice and give it to the nurse.

Work the order, don't trust your gut. Airway, then breathing, then circulation. After that, Maslow: physiologic before safety before psychosocial. Then rank what's left by acute before chronic, unstable before stable, and actual before potential. When two options genuinely look equal, assess first.

Run the 5 Rights as a gate. Right task, right circumstance, right person, right direction and communication, right supervision and evaluation. If any one of the five fails, the answer is that the RN doesn't delegate it. Missing supervision is the one students forget: handing off a task doesn't hand off the accountability.

One honest note on the sheet: whether an LPN can push IV medications varies by state and board of nursing. The NCLEX generally treats IV push as RN territory, but your own practice will depend on where you're licensed. We flagged it on the poster rather than pretending there's one national answer.

Every fact here is built on the NCSBN and ANA National Guidelines for Nursing Delegation and the Five Rights of Delegation, not on someone's study notes.

Want to know how much your weak areas are really costing you? Your NCLEX pass probability weights each category by its actual share of the exam, so a gap in Management of Care pulls harder than a gap in a smaller area. And if you're still building your plan, start with the study schedule for your timeline.

Delegation questions are pure judgment, which means reading a cheat sheet isn't enough. You have to practice picking under pressure. NCLEX Kingdom has 4,000+ NCLEX-style questions, free in your browser.