Nursing should be re-named?

[SunshinePie]

Was pondering over this recently, is calling “nursing” is a bit old fashioned? You now need a degree to be a nurse, and they often are pretty much doing junior doctor jobs. Calling it something else that recognises it’s academic demands, and also more inclusive to males wanting to work in the field…something like Healthcare Medic / Healthcare Practitioner/ Assistant Medic…. Or similar, you get the idea….

-YABU, it should be kept “nurse”, it’s traditional and has roots in “nursing an infant” ie breastfeeding (that reflects the caring nature)

-YANBU it’s old fashioned, insulting to people with degrees and esp males.

Nurses nowadays have a lot more responsibility to deal with. With being educated to degree level comes more work.
When I hear the word "nurse", the first thing I think of is someone actually nursing/caring for a patient. Not someone sat behind a computer screen doing paperwork.
My time as a patient as been mostly limited to psychiatric wards...and the nurses there never left the office. The care and nursing was carried out by HCAs.

Things are confusing enough. Yabu

My friend is an adult ward on a stroke unit and she says they will only ever have 3-4 nurses on shift for a 20 bedded unit but there will be about 8 HCAs there.

She said the nurses do the drug rounds but the HCAs do absolutely everything else.

Its quite sad really.

The role of 'advanced practitioner' already exists and the staff (whether from a nursing or allied HCP background) work at the level of a mid grade doctor, nurses do not. That is not to say they don't do an important role and work exceptionally hard (particularly sisters/charge nurses who take a huge amount of responsibility for a department or ward) but it is definitely not the same role as a junior doctor.

I'm proud to be a nurse. 35 years in with masters and specialist post grad qualifications leading my own nurse led service.

If you want to campaign for something what about stopping unqualified assistants being called nurses?

... where in our hospital the patient would be seen by a nurse, who would do an assessment and make recommendations on a treatment plan. All on her own, with a fluffy wee pen that she's allowed to hold on her own.

Our psych liaison team have F1s on rotation but they can't even see patients alone initially and can't discharge them without one of the practitioners (90% of whom are nurses) agreeing to it. We're very much an MDT but our consultant describes it as a nurse-led team (I would disagree as I think we're more balanced but we're there 24 hours and do all the emergency assessments so it's probably on the balance of availability more than anything).

Sorry, I should have been clearer, when I said the Mental Health Team I was referring to two nurses we have that run the service (A Band 7 and a Band 8). So yes, nurse led and not doctor led care.

What a rucky thread. If this is how doctors and nurses behave in real life no wonder the NHS is doomed. It's always been difficult to polish a turd.

Fact. If I am ill and need some excellent medical advice I am perfectly happy to paynto see an appropriately qualified consultant. I would not be happy to hand over £250 to a nurse although I would be very happy to received high quality nursing care from them.

In my experience every time I have asked a nurse, midwife or health visitor a clinical question about a potential disease they have said "I don't know".

An FY1 straight out of med school can manage DKA.

Ducking hell. That's a terrifying thought.

Don’t know if it’s been said as haven’t RTFT but you know surgeons didn’t have degrees originally? Nurses don’t need a new name

Why not change it to Dogsbody? after all, we pay them little more than the Living wage, so perhaps their title should reflect this?

Totally agree.
Nurses hide in offices. The HCAs do the real hands on stuff.

YABU. The word nurse isn’t sex-based - it’s for men and women nurses. You’re being ridiculous.

@XenoBitch

Must tell my physio that my back is completely fucked from hiding in an office

I didn't say they were the same. You said nurses train for three years and then gain the same knowledge via experience. I was just pointing out that, once qualified, nurses continue to learn through taking courses and having to do further exams. For a nurse, learning and studying never stops.

Nope. Not in my experience.

Things that I have seen doctors (mostly junior, but one or two regs and consultants) struggle with on a respiratory ward:

• What to do if a patient has high or low blood sugar, never mind how to manage DKA.
• How to open the crash trolley during an arrest.
• How to prescribe cyzline, nebs, paracetamol etc.
• The difference between a CPAP and NIV machine.
• How to prescribe the settings on an NIV machine, or what it actually does.
• The sepsis 6.
• What to do if a patient has a seizure, or how to manage status epilepticus
• That if a patient has a respiration rate of 36, a blood gas is a good idea.

Of course they have been to medical school and are more qualified than nurses academically, but I would say that they do rely on some form of support from experienced nurses at that start. I'm not saying that that makes a nurse more qualified than a doctor, but with experience you can preempt what needs to be done according to the relevant guideline. A bit like how a rat learns it's way round a maze 🤣. Many times a junior doctor has said to me "what do you want me to prescribe?" Or "what's the usual dose?" etc? And they've trusted my answer.

I would also say to the poster who said that junior doctors are often bullied by nurses, so are new nurses. Honestly some of the bitchest people I've ever met are nurses, and some wards are known for having a bad reputation of eating their young. I was bullied as a newly qualified nurse and try really hard not to be that nurse now!

Are healthcsre assistants trained to nurse? Can they tell if a patient is dehydrated and deal with it? Can they sit and smell if a patient is deteriorating? Can they actually arrange a pillow for comfort? Can they sit and judge if a patient is in pain?

I would also say to the poster who said that junior doctors are often bullied by nurses, so are new nurses. Honestly some of the bitchest people I've ever met are nurses, and some wards are known for having a bad reputation of eating their young. I was bullied as a newly qualified nurse and try really hard not to be that nurse now!

Yes! Nurses eat their young.
I trained as an ODP. I went into the changing room many a time to see student nurses in tears... and me too. I would try and spend as long as I could hiding in the loo from some of the staff.
I am still in touch with several people from uni.. and about half have now left health care altogether. I don't blame them.

I think they should be renamed. The people who drive ambulances used to just be called Ambulance Drivers. Then their role shifted and they gained many more responsibilities and their job title changed accordingly to Paramedic.

I've worked with some amazing healthcare assistants who could do all of the above. But they are rare. Probably because they only get half a days training, would get paid more to work in pretty much any other job and it's back breaking, mostly thankless, work.

That's a very odd set up @Perplexed0522. I've worked for 18 years in a childrens hospital and all children will be seen by a doctor. Although we are allowed to do nurse led discharges for certain things. But only if the doctor or surgeon has said we can.
I've recently started doing agency work on DGH children's wards and that's been quite an eye opener. All the kids are under the paediatricians, with other specialists as required. It makes life much easier, as the adult teams ENT, Spinal etc just don't 'get' children and things fall through the gaps.
I'm also impressed that they look after quite sick children with no immediate access to PICU or an out reach team as we have. Though their definition of busy is very different to ours!

The HCA on my ward can do all of that plus basic wound care and so much more.

We couldn't function with out them