[lotus32]

Hi Everyone,
As part of an International/Transcultural Nursing trip my school is sending 30 nursing students and three instructors to London to tour hospitals, sit in on lectures and see how things are done on the other side of the pond. So, tell me what is Nursing in the UK really like? What do you love most and what would you change?

Thanks in advance,


Steph

[Fonenurse]

Nursing in the UK is so diverse and changing beyond recognition. What I like about it is still the same as ever - making a difference to someone who appreciates what I did.

I work in quality improvement and it's exhilirating when I see issues I identified being worked on and practice changing and improving because of the evaluative work that I do.

Things I would change:

• Making health care at arms length to the government so that we don't have this incessant fixation on change and tweeking things on a whim that allowing the politicians to do right now does.
• Change from being an illness service to being truly a health service (which I think is just beginning to happen in places)
• Getting away from meaningless performance targets and if we need targets at all, making them ones that patients can benefit from and not be fiddled to make care look good instead of being good!

[cariad]

thats a great thing for you to be doing, dont forget to give us your feedback, once you have been over there, will be interesting.

[RGN1]

Hope you have a great trip & please,please fill us in on your findings - I think we'd all be interested!!

Also there are several threads on here about nursing in the UK so you could do a search - but I have to warn you most of them are not pretty!!!

[karenG]

sounds like a great idea!

I trained in London and worked at moorfields eye hospital for a couple of years.

while you are here- try and visit the florence nightingale museum at St Thomas's- well worth a look, as is the RCN headquarters in cavendish square- has the best nursing library in the country. other things to visit include the 'black museum' at Guys hospital- a museum full of the stuff that has gone wrong with patients and the things we have done as well as some other stuff. its not open to the public- you have to be in the profession to visit and your tutor would have to arrange it. Guys is also the home of possibly the oldest operating theatre in london. not used now though! but worth visting if only to be able say thank goodness we have moved on!!

I hope you enjoy your stay in London- I live on the outskirts and there is lots to see and do!! oh and if you have a free moment- try afternoon tea at the Ritz!

Karen