Letters extra – March 2012
Mental health training
Having just read RCN Bulletin (Letters and emails, February) there is a letter that I have to agree with quite strongly concerning mental health training.
Having just moved into a nursing home environment from the local hospital, I work with a selection of different skilled nurses. I find we complement each other. They have skills and knowledge that I may lack, and they call upon my general experience when needed. In this way our residents have the best of care that we can give.
Kathleen Mallabone
Having just completed a postgraduate diploma and therefore qualifying as an RMN, I was surprised to read Victoria Barack's letter in RCN Bulletin (Letters and emails, February).
I have spent two years undertaking at times intense, but thorough, mental health training alongside RGNs who were completing their general nurse training.
In no way do I feel that "mental health training is worthless nowadays" or "adult training covers it".
We may have been taught the same fundamental principles of nursing but in the same way that we, as RMNs, were not taught how to put in a cannula or treat a leg ulcer, the RGNs were not taught how to deal with challenging behaviour and at times demanding dementia patients.
Having worked on a dementia ward as a nursing student, there is definitely a place for both RMNs and RGNs and I believe we should work alongside each other, making use of each other's specialities, to provide the best care possible for the patient.
Helen Owen
I have just read Victoria Barak’s letter in RCN Bulletin (Letters and emails, February) and I can understand her feelings of dismay and humiliation.
Care of a person with dementia needs to be managed by a nurse with specialised knowledge of this disease.
Is this condition and management fully addressed in general nurse education? Is “mental health training worthless nowadays”?
I spent two years researching how this disease can affect people and demonstrated ways in which memory can be helped, initially.
It is my experience that this knowledge and understanding needs to be taught/discussed with nurses/carers caring for people with dementia if there is to be any attempt at providing them with a better quality of life.
Jo Woolf
Victoria Barak (Letters and emails, February) makes a good point about the "worth" of mental health nurse training and its recognition, or lack of, within general nursing.
In my role I work very closely with mental health support workers. They are employed within our community nursing team and me and my colleagues are expected to mentor them with supervision from a specialist mental health nurse. I honestly do not think the role would work without this specialist input on the basis that my colleagues and I do not have a mental health qualification.
I'm not saying that we could not manage a caseload of patients with mental health conditions. As it is many of our patients have mental health issues, as well as other long and short term conditions that require management. But, my colleagues and I feel better supported and able to ask for advice and information that we feel is not within our specialty, skills or experience.
I feel that this type of undermining of nurses’ qualifications is not just happening within mental health, but can also be seen with the changes being made to our banding and grading systems. More should be done to stop this type of erosion so that nurses can be awarded for the hard work and effort that they put in to becoming a nurse.
Naomi Donegan
I couldn't agree more. For years this has been happening with learning disability jobs.
Frequently they are now employing/asking for RMN. Jobs now for learning disability nurses are now very hard to come by and it is frustrating when you find RGN or RMN acceptable for the vacancies. This is even supported in RCN Bulletin where there was an advert for RMN by Vision Mental Health Care. This role involves working with people who have autism spectrum disorders and Asperger’s syndrome, a LD nursing role.
I spent three years training for the LD role and as time has gone on I see the values of the role becoming constantly eroded and often derided. I am nearing the end of my career and feel sad to think that in the future there will no longer be a role for younger people who are currently undergoing their training.
Are we giving them false hope, because I feel it is only a matter of time before the LD nurse will become a thing of the past.
RMN nurses have a vital role to play in mental health services so I hope that when we are gone they don't become the poor relations of nursing which we have been for some time now.
Kind regards
Christine A Smith
RNLD, BSc Honours Psychology and Nursing Practice, Post Grad Dip Advancing Healthcare Practice
Private support
I read the comment made by Jane Bunnett in RCN Bulletin (Feedback, February 2012) and I would like to make a comment on the matter she raised on whether support is given (or not) to the members of RCN in the private sector.
I feel the reply from Clare Jacobs did not answer the question raised which was "why does the RCN not support members in the private sector the same way it does in the NHS?".
I have 35 years of practice as a registered nurse in England. Most of my career as a nurse has been in the private sector. I worked 25 years for Bupa hospitals (now Spire hospitals). Currently, I have been working for over more than two years for another hospital-based private company.
I would like to know why is it that nurses who work in the private hospitals do not get the same level of support from RCN, that nurses working in the NHS do.
Even though we are told by the managers that they do not recognise RCN in the workplace, when we do get the RCN regional officer helping management, life is made difficult for us trained professionals.
I have been told that the RCN has been invited to work with management, which is even more difficult to mention at work now we are members of the RCN.
So in my view it should make no difference at all in the UK. If members of the RCN work for the NHS and independent sector (like in the criminal justice, occupational health, schools, care homes GP practices, private hospitals, clinics), then we should all get the expert help given by the RCN - regrettably this is not the case.
I am coming at the end of my career soon, but I still hope to see that this unfair treatment can be a thing of the past, and that present and future members of our profession will not suffer such injustice in their working lives as professional nurses.
Yours sincerely,