Online editor's blog: Is it OK for nurses to join the BNP?

Nursing Times online editor Gabriel Fleming

Nursing Times online editor Gabriel Fleming

The four nurses appearing on the BNP membership list has have opened up quite a can of worms. Nursing Times online editor Gabriel Fleming joins the debate

Last week's news was not particularly kind to the caring professions, what with the leaked list of British National Party members featuring at least four nurses.

Debates like this tend to inspire quick and harsh opinion, so Mental Nurse's measured response was a welcome voice of reason. If you haven't got time to read it, at least take the chance to laugh at the BNP.

Personally, I wouldn't fancy being a black patient in a busy A&E department with a card-carrying member of the BNP making the triage decisions.

But it has to be said that the BNP is a legal and legitmate part of the UK political system, so why shouldn't nurses be allowed to join? Perhaps because being a member of a party whose founding principle is disliking foreigners contravenes the nursing ethos of caring for everyone. But maybe it's more complicated than that. The debate goes on.

This blog also appears on nursesuniverse.blogspot.com

Should nurses be in the BNP? Join the debate on the Nursing Times forum


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