Alex Munro is a registered nurse with a background in unscheduled care as a nurse practitioner. He is the co-founder and clinical director of Hallam Medical, the primary care recruitment specialist.
Is it me, or is simply being a nurse becoming more difficult than ever before? What with the pressures of the workplace, constant media coverage and ever-present politics, nurses could be forgiven for forgetting why they chose the profession in the first place.
Given the current healthcare landscape and the focus of government policy, the way nurses are prepared for working in people’s homes needs reconsidering. The standards for pre-registration nurse education (Nursing and Midwifery Council [NMC], 2010) do prepare nurses to work in the community at initial registration. However, staff nurses at this point of their career, or those that move from the acute sector to the community, do need to work under the supervision of a qualified district nurse during this transition.
Heather Bain, Course Leader Masters Portfolio, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen
