Maintain pressure on reforms to protect NHSCompassion key to nursing, RCN tells PM's commission
The Royal College of Nursing has called for a ‘cultural change’ to ensure the profession prioritises values such as compassion alongside scientific breakthroughs.
RCN executive director of nursing and service delivery Janet Davies was commenting in response to the Prime Minister’s Commission on the Future of Nursing and Midwifery.
She said: “The NHS was built on care, compassion and empathy. These are nursing values. Patients are increasingly savvy about their own health, and we need a cultural change to reflect their needs.”
The RCN’s formal response to the consultation explains that nursing values of care, compassion and empathy will be as important to patients in the future as technological and scientific breakthroughs.
To address future nursing shortages, the profession needs to inspire people to join and support them to deliver quality care.
The response makes the following recommendations:
- Nursing must be promoted as a life long career, with extensive opportunities to develop skills and encouragement for school leavers and mature students to enter the all graduate profession from 2015
- The support and development of ward sisters and community leaders must be a priority
- Healthcare assistants need to be regulated alongside nurses
- There should be a director of nursing on every health organisation’s board
- There must be appropriate staffing levels and mixture of skills, and the nursing contribution must be recognised and valued for the difference it makes
The commission was established in March to advise the government on a strategy for the future of nursing. It is due to report back next March.
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Readers' comments (4)
Does the nursing profession prioritise values such as empathy and compassion?
Chris Hardwick | 28-Aug-2009 9:40 am
Couldn't agree more. For me compassion is THE vital ingredient of a good nurse, something no amount of academic qualifications, Government targets and pressure from managers who have no experience of caring can instil. Old-fashioned it may sound, but qualities such as dedication and commitment are essential, and those who are responsible for interviewing applicants for nurse training should be looking at these as well as A level grades.
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Mark Cole | 28-Aug-2009 11:00 am
In light of the grim reading in yesterday's Patients' Association report, it is vital that nursing recaptures its essence and ethos.
However, the primitive professionalisation of nursing - running through a process of merely apeing the developmental trajectory of the ancient professions purely in pursuit of formal status - has had a deleterious impact on the practice of nursing.
The pursuit of graduate status for all practitioners has simply changes nursing from a true vocation to which motivated people were called to a profession among many. Similarly, the surrender by nursing of a range of key patient care activities to support staff has broken a key link between the practitioner and her patients.
It is wearisome to say this - as it is said so very often - but nursing needs to reconnect with the art of care as well as maintaining its grasp on the science of medicine. Additionally, the suitability of those who wish to enter nursing should be assessed not simply on whether they are able to work through an academic qualification but whether they truly understand the purpose of nursing - and what the public expects of its nurses.
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Paul Ayrton | 28-Aug-2009 12:50 pm
"Hear, hear!" to Mark & Chris, although there's an implicit sad indictment on the lack of this simple human quality within the profession. The RCN's recommendations talk a good talk, but without some hint or vague promise about the "how" of these they're pretty pointless. I'd take some issue with Ms Davies' assertion of patient 'savvy' - it's not a straight lead from there to actually taking responsibility for one's own maintenance of health, e.g. actually implementing the lifestyle changes where it's advisable. As long as people have the inalienable right to actively foist their ill-health and associated problems onto an overburdened system this will not get us any further forward. 'Compassion fatigue' is a recognised phenomenon, & maybe this is why.
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Patricia Sadio | 28-Aug-2009 4:12 pm
mmmhh! Foist? An interesting turn of phrase about an article on 'compassion'. Is it me or did i read this all wrong?
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