8 February 2007
Demise of nursing is compromising patient care in the UK
Healthcare in the UK is being undermined by the lowering of nursing education and standards, according to leading professors of nursing.
Writing in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Professors Linda Shields1 and Roger Watson, argue nursing is under threat and being replaced by technicians, minimally educated healthcare assistants and unqualified health workers.
“The UK is failing to educate nurses to the standards required in other developed countries,”said Professor Watson of the University of Sheffield.
“Australia requires a bachelor’s degree for nursing registration, as do most US states. While UK universities began offering nursing degrees in 1960, in 2005–6, only 4 per cent of nurses are educated to degree level.”
Nursing education in England is funded by the Department of Health; in contrast to other disciplines which are supported by higher education funding bodies.
“In the UK, nursing is haemorrhaging knowledge, skills and people from all sides,”write the authors.
“Unqualified health care assistants are taking nursing skills, as cheaper workers with scant education are replacing registered nurses.”
“Under the influence of pecuniary motives within the NHS, nursing as a role in health care is changing to encompass boundaries which have never been a part of a true nursing role before. Consequently, medical practice will be affected, and patient care compromised.”
Professor Watson said: “The government has gone for a quick fix to alleviate NHS financial pressure however nurses are being cheated out of a proper university education.
“If we don't start educating nurses properly we'll get the workforce we deserve.”
The authors argue that Government action is demeaning nursing:
“The recent ‘modern matron’ initiative in the UK is singularly unhelpful to a profession trying to demonstrate that it has moved on,”they said.
“Nurses are being pressured to resume domestic roles and the NHS made cleaning of wards a nursing responsibility, a regression on improvements in the role of nurses since the 1960s, with little response from the profession.”
[ends]
The demise of nursing in the United Kingdom: A warning for medicine [PDF 64k]
‘The demise of nursing in the United Kingdom: A warning for medicine’ by L Shields and R Watson is published in the February 2007 issue (Vol. 100) of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.
JRSM is the flagship journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. It has been published continuously since 1809. Its Editor is Dr Kamran Abbasi. www.jrsm.org.
The article is available free at www.jrsm.org.
1University of Hull
2University of Sheffield
