Healthcare in the UK is being undermined by the lowering of nursing education and standards, according to two leading professors of nursing.
“The UK is failing to educate nurses to the standards required in other developed countries,” said Professor Watson. “Australia requires a bachelor’s degree for nursing registration, as do most US states. However, while UK universities began offering nursing degrees in 1960, in 2005/06 only 4% of nurses were educated to degree level.”
Nursing education in England is funded by the Department of Health in contrast to other disciplines that are supported by higher education funding bodies.
“In the UK, nursing is haemorrhaging knowledge, skills and people from all sides,” write the authors. “Unqualified healthcare 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 healthcare is changing to encompass boundaries that have never been a part of a true nursing role before. Consequently, medical practice will be affected, and patient care compromised.”
Professor Watson added: “The Government has gone for a quick fix to alleviate NHS financial pressure, however nurses are being cheated out of a proper university education.”
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.”
Responding to the article, Dr Peter Carter, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, commented: “Reports of the death of nursing have been greatly exaggerated. Nursing is a growing and vibrant profession. Nurses are at the heart of modernising the NHS and have been instrumental in bringing down waiting times, improving patient care and taking on extended roles, such as performing minor surgery and prescribing drugs.
“Far from being simply a hearts and hands vocation, nursing does need to be about heads too. That is why it is vital we make sure student nurses get the best possible education, training and support to prepare them for their careers. But this will not happen if student places, training budgets and entry-level jobs continue to be cut for short-term financial reasons.
“Running the health service is a team effort and overseas nurses and healthcare assistants are an integral part of the team.”
