Nurse consultant idea is not the answer.

Abstract

Just when I think I have suffered all the psychological injuries that thinking, caring nurses could possibly have to endure, Tony Blair launches another missile. He claims he does not want nurses to be cast in the role of doctors' handmaidens but then proposes a system that will perpetuate the image he, allegedly, seeks to destroy. I am not opposed to a career structure that keeps nurses in practice, nor am I unhappy with the title ‘nurse consultant’, but these developments can only be beneficial to the profession if located within a framework for nursing – not medicine. In a climate where the biomedical model dominates, and where the Government is under pressure to reduce junior doctors' hours, it does not take genius to work out what these ‘super nurses’ will be doing. The move is guaranteed to perpetuate the abuse of power in nursing through the addition of an elite group whose members are likely to be selected on the basis of their allegiance to the values of doctors and managers rather than nursing.