The Role of the Nurse

4284 Words18 Pages
June 2009

Discussion paper 3

The role of the nurse
The NHS Next Stage Review workforce report, A high quality workforce*, indicates that nurses will always be at the heart of shaping the patient experience and delivering care. It promotes further work on reaffirming the role of the nurse and also supports the development of metrics to measure and help improve the quality of nursing care. So, what does this mean for the largest section of the healthcare workforce?
Fluctuations in workforce supply and demand, coupled with changes to policy for the nursing profession and healthcare service delivery make workforce planning and analysing the future role of the nurse a challenge. Delivering the vision of the Next Stage Review (NSR) to modernise all healthcare careers will require the engagement of the whole of the NHS. This will apply whether these are clinical, administrative or support-based roles. The process starts before education, with the need to market healthcare careers and clearly profile the behaviours and values the NHS needs in its future workforce. It is vital that any new policies or frameworks support employers’ needs in terms of what they want their future nursing workforce to look like and put quality at the centre of any change. This discussion paper has been produced: • to give you a summary of the emerging issues • to provoke thought and discussion about proposals to modernise the nursing workforce • to engage you in the debate and formulation of policy by asking you to respond to a number of key questions. The questions may also be useful to start debate within your own organisations. This paper discusses nursing in general and not particular specialisms, branches, health visitors or midwives. These will be addressed as our work programme progresses.

Background
What does our workforce look like now and what will it look like in the future?

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