Over the past year, I have had the privilege of co-chairing the Reps Role Review project – work that I feel incredibly passionate about, not just as Co-Chair, but as an RCN member and an active Rep myself.

Our reps are at the heart of our trade union.

Every day, across workplaces and organisations, Stewards, Health and Safety Reps and Learning Reps are supporting members, challenging poor practice, improving workplaces, developing colleagues and making sure the voices of nursing staff are heard.

But our role descriptors needed to properly reflect that.

They needed to describe the reality of being an RCN rep today, but also the kind of trade union we want to continue building: visible, active, inclusive, organised and rooted firmly in our workplaces and our membership.

That is why this review has been about far more than updating documents.

It has been about recognising the contribution our reps already make, strengthening our three rep roles and being clearer about the part every rep can play in building collective power.

Built with reps, not simply just written about them

One of the things that has mattered most to me throughout this work is that the voices of reps themselves have been central to it.

The new descriptors are the result of extensive consultation with members, reps and staff, with significant involvement from our Reps Committees. That matters.

Because nobody understands these roles better than the people carrying them out in workplaces every day.

Many of the changes will therefore feel familiar. They recognise activity that fantastic reps across the UK are already doing – engaging members, working collectively, organising around workplaceissues, supporting campaigns and working alongside other reps.

But putting those expectations clearly into our role descriptors sends an important message about what RCN activism looks like.

Equality must run through everything we do

Equality, diversity and inclusion are not an additional part of trade union activity. They are fundamental to it.

The revised descriptors set out EDI activity across all three rep roles, recognising the responsibility we have to challenge inequality, understand the different experiences of our members and make sure every member has the opportunity to have their voice heard.

They also recognise the importance of student members and working closely with them. 

Students are not simply the nursing workforce of tomorrow. They are part of our profession and our RCN community. Building relationships with students and helping them understand the power of collective representation is essential to our future.

From the workplace to the national stage

Our strength as a trade union starts in our workplaces, but it doesn’t end there.

RCN reps have an incredibly important role in connecting members with our wider national campaigns, consultations and priorities.

When we talk to members, organise around the issues affecting them and bring their experiences into the wider RCN, we make sure our national voice is grounded in what is actually happening to nursing staff.

That connection – member to rep, workplace to branch, region and country, and ultimately to our national campaigning voice – is how we build influence and collective power.

This is only the beginning

Publishing the new role descriptors is an important milestone, but it isn’t the end of this work.

They will now help shape reviews of rep training and will feed into the Support and Supervision project.

And that is crucial.

We cannot set out ambitious expectations for our reps without also making sure they have the training, development, support and confidence they need to fulfil them.

We ask a great deal of our reps. Most undertake this work alongside demanding nursing roles, because they believe passionately in standing alongside colleagues and making things better.

I know what being an RCN rep means to me.

It means standing beside a member when they feel they have nobody else in their corner. It means challenging something that isn’t right. It means asking difficult questions. It means listening, organising and sometimes simply being the person who says, “We can do something about this.”

But above all, it means recognising that our greatest strength has never been any one individual.

It is each other.

I am enormously proud of what we have achieved through this project so far and grateful to every member, rep and member of staff who contributed, challenged us and helped shape these descriptors.

Now I want us to use them.

Read them. Talk about them with your fellow reps. Think about how your rep team works together. Use them to start conversations with members. And use them to think about what you need from the RCN to help you become an even stronger and more effective rep.

Because these aren’t simply descriptions of three roles.

They are about who we are as RCN reps, what we stand for, and the kind of trade union we want to build together.

Read the new descriptors for:

Stewards

Learning Reps

Health and Safety Reps