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Nurses should return to basics, British
report says Posted 11-9-98 Nurse training should focus more on the traditional tasks of comforting, feeding, and bathing the sick than on managerial skills and technical competence with machinery, according to a report from a British think tank. The basic skills of caring for patients are being ignored, making nursing a less attractive profession for new students, according to the Social Affairs Unit’s report, "Come Back Miss Nightingale." But Christine Hancock, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, counters that low pay and poor working conditions are to blame for recruitment problems and some 8,000 nursing vacancies in that country. This report "is an effort to try to keep nurses in a little box instead of recognizing nurses’ expanding influence," said Cheryl Peterson, RN, senior policy fellow for international affairs for the American Nurses Association. The starting salary of a new staff nurse is about $20,000 in the United Kingdom, compared with approximately $35,000 in the United States, Peterson said. There’s not a widespread shortage of nurses in the United States, she said, unlike the United Kingdom, which has had a shortage for several years. Related Site
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