The future of work for nurses

DavidFR, BSN, MSN, RN · Jul 20, 2021

I take it you all got the NMC consultation questionnaire on the way to go post Brexit?

They feel there is no longer any need to maintain EU standards. British nursing will become even more isolated and anomalous than it is already. On an international level it will become harder for UK trained nurses to be as mobile as they have been in the past. Whereas I just came to another EU country and registered my qualification in 30 minutes, that will no longer be possible. Not being in line with EU standards will make UK nurses less attractive to other non-EU countries too.

There are lots of tasks I didn't do in the UK because they were "extended rôles" that I had to learn here pretty quick since every French student nurse was doing them, arterial stabs for blood gases being a case in point. I fear British nursing will slip further behind rather than being brought up to match international standards.

As far as recruitment goes, yes, you will miss the EU nurses. Good luck.

Louise Dal · Jul 21, 2021

Thanks. I didn't see the NMC consultation questionnaire, no. How do you think the new Health and Care bill will influence practice? Better/worse conditions for front line staff?

DavidFR, BSN, MSN, RN · Jul 22, 2021

17 hours ago, Louise Dal said:

Thanks. I didn't see the NMC consultation questionnaire, no. How do you think the new Health and Care bill will influence practice? Better/worse conditions for front line staff?

I personally know nothing about it, and I stress I've been gone from the UK 20 years, but I do have contact with nurses still practising in the UK. All they tell me makes me glad I left.

I would say at a grass roots level the fundamental difference to nursing practices in my experience of the UK vs. France is this: France never went though that period we did of seeing task orientation as a dirty word. We lived through The Nursing Process, Care Plans, Nursing Models, Team Nursing, Primary Nursing, Nursing Diagnoses, Anticipated Recovery Pathways etc. etc. Lots of theorising, while in Fance they just carried on getting the work done. I am NOT anti-academia, I speak as somebody with a masters but in the UK we don't seem to know how to keep the lid on it and we let it rule our entire working lives trying to make an academic profession out of what is essentially a practical job (in France we're officially classified as "agent de maîtrise, technicien" basically"skilled technicians" !!) In the UK there are too many out of touch Nursing Developement Advisors and the like telling people at the coal face who know better that they're doing it wrong. Bedside nurses are probably more listened to in France.

And voilà, the UK went through all of that just to go full circle back to "care rounds" because patients weren't being given drinks and were all malnourished. Oh but for years "rounds" weren't patient centred, didn't treat the patient as an individual yawn yawn. Needless to say we still do our "tour" in France and never stopped - and our patients get enough to drink.

On a government level I would say UK policy makers are possibly too out of touch. Our current health minister Olivier Veran is a neurologist, our last health minister Agnès Buzyn was a haematologist: clinicians who know the score. On my local council the health and social care delegate is a practising nurse. Compare that to the likes of Matt Hancock or Jeremy Hunt - need I say any more?

I notice you say you're in policy analysis. Are you in a government position or are you asking for some kind of research?

Louise Dal · Jul 28, 2021

Thank you for your reply. Yes I'm interested more generally in discourses of health and social care workers for a university research project (not government). May I quote you (if you remain anonymous)?

DavidFR, BSN, MSN, RN · Jul 28, 2021

11 hours ago, Louise Dal said:

May I quote you (if you remain anonymous)?

Yes, no problem.

Louise Dal · Jul 28, 2021

Thank you.