Independent Sector: where are we and what's next?

My name is Jeremy Benton, I’m an adult nurse, the RCN Council member for the South East Region and Co-Chair of the Independent Health and Social Care Joint Partnership Board (IHSC JPB). I was a mature student, qualifying in 2004 and I have been an RCN member all my nursing career and active for most of it. A critical care nurse by background and training, I left the NHS in 2011 and I’ve been in the non-NHS sector ever since and for the last five years or so working exclusively as an agency nurse. You can read more about the RCN's work in the Independent health and social care sector here.

Our RCN is going through major changes and as an elected Council member I am at the heart of those changes and one of the most exciting is the move away from an extremely NHS-centric model towards an inclusive one which recognises that around 45% of us don’t work in the NHS. This is very much a joint member/staff effort and early evidence of that is the fact that we have the IHSC JPB to start with!

One of the early challenges we faced was a lack of data about our members across the board. A great deal of work has gone into our database and our website, improving both significantly - if you are concerned your details, especially your employer details, may not be correct, you can check them here. One of the key changes is to allow members to register more than one employer – for example an agency or staff bank – which allows us to identify those of us not working in the NHS and therefore to tailor products and services better.

One of the challenges that we must face is that many non-NHS members of the nursing family do not see the relevance of RCN membership and that those of us who are members are not as engaged and active as we need to be if we’re going to continue to develop our College in the inclusive direction it has to continue in. To address this we have a dedicated communications plan, of which this article is a small part and we are reaching out to our non-NHS colleagues to become involved.

One of the opportunities is to increase our membership in care homes across the four countries as we are developing a range of products and services directly relevant to our colleagues working in this field. Additionally we are working to develop recognition agreements better to allow us to assist in improving pay and conditions in this sector.

I am always happy to talk to members. My email is Jeremy.Benton@rcn.org.uk and I will respond to any emails I receive.

I do, however, have a favour to ask: Can you suggest a snappier title that “IHSC JPB”? Email me with your suggestions!