Maintain pressure on reforms to protect NHSPrime Minister's Commission wants nurses' views
Prime Minister’s Commission on the Future of Nursing and Midwifery is looking for nurses to contribute their opinions on the profession.
The commission have launched a website intended to encourage nurses and other interested parties to submit their views on future nursing roles and the challenges facing the profession.
Health minister and commission chair Ann Keen said that members wanted to have an ‘interactive and robust dialogue to identify challenges and opportunities for nurses and midwives’.
‘We’d like to hear your views about nursing and midwifery – whether you are a patient, a patient’s relative or friend, a carer, a member of the public, someone who works in health or social care, or a stakeholder organisation concerned with health or social care issues, within and outside the NHS in England,’ she said.
The commission met for the first time on 28 April and set out three questions it wants both nurses and the general public to answer. They are:
1) What are the knowledge, skills and attributes of your ‘ideal’ nurse or midwife?
2) What would you like to see nurses and midwives doing more of and/or doing differently in the future – whether in people’s own homes, in the community or in hospital?
3) What might be preventing nurses and midwives from doing this now?
Click here to submit your views to the commission.
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Readers' comments (4)
Anonymous | 26-May-2009 10:50 am
Knowledge and skills can be taught, compassion comes from within, patients are people,which often gets forgotten due to lack of time and staff and also due to lack of hospital beds people are hearded around and sent home far to quickley resulting in many being readmitted, where is the sence in this?
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Mike Firth | 30-Aug-2009 6:59 pm
I have just spent 7 months in the hospital where I previously worked as a nurse as a patient. I concur with the last respondent and more. Nursing has lost its way since I was trained in the 70's. (I left the profession on health grounds a short while ago) Compassion is missing. To much time spent on pills and paperwork. Nurses simply do not take on board what patients and NOK say. They dont listen you can see it in their eyes they are looking to the next task. I have huge concerns that nurses at all levels do not take the basic of cares with the administration of drugs and the reliance of the NHS to rely on nurses whose first language is not English is frightening.
Theres a lot that remains good with the nursing profession especially in extended roles but it has been a the cost of ward based staffing levels and dare I say it a degree in nursing is not a degree in nursing as I know it.
I am now a marine biologist
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Anonymous | 10-Sep-2009 10:10 am
I am a nurse who was a patient recently and the ward was full to bursting. A hub of activity with two nurses trying to cope with everything. The medicine round too 3 hours so they had to choose between giving essential medicines or bathing patients and making beds. Both nurses were doing double shifts from 7am to 9pm and by the time they were due to leave only one had managed a 30 minute break.
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Anonymous | 28-Oct-2009 10:02 am
I work in a male prison and function as part of a team of 50 Healthcare staff. The knowledge and skills required for this unique environment make me consider whether this area of nursing should be regarded as a speciality.
Due to the nature of the environment, security must come first, but where does this leave Healthcare?
Not all services can be provided in-house and it is often necessary for prisoners to be transferred to secondary care, this has security implications and sending a prisoner to hospital should not be considered lightly.
I would like to see Advanced Nurses with prescribing and health assessment skills functioning full time covering a 24hr service. This may reduce costs for the need for GPs, on call medical services and the prison service in terms of escorting prisoners.
This is not considered in my PCT.....yet.
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