‘Nurses have made their voice heard loud and clear’
STEVE FORD, EDITOR
11 August, 2022 By Megan Ford
Source:  Karl Black / Alamy Stock Photo
The national job profiles for nursing and midwifery are to be reviewed to ensure they reflect current practice and are fit for purpose across hospital and community settings, it has been announced.
NHS Employers has confirmed that a survey will be launched next month to help gather evidence from NHS organisations across the UK to help better understand the “modern nursing and midwifery landscape”.
“The profiles need urgent revision to reflect the full depth of nursing now”
Clare Jacobs
The survey, which aims to establish the current education, qualifications, training and development requirements within the professions, will be used to inform a review of the national job profiles for the professions.
Within the NHS, jobs advertised must be matched to national job profiles. Current job profiles for nursing explore the skills and education required for clinical support workers through to nurse consultants.
Expected to take up to two years to complete, the review was called for by the Royal College of Nursing and will be led by the NHS Staff Council’s Job Evaluation Group.
The group is set to hold a webinar on the topic in September and, alongside the survey, is looking to engage with nursing leaders across the NHS, the Nursing and Midwifery Council, Health Education England and trade unions.
The review aims to make sure the content of the profiles and the language used within them is updated to reflect developments in nursing and midwifery practice, as well as new models of care in both hospital and community settings.
By having robust and updated profiles, it is hoped that this will also help employers ensure pay equality across their workforce.
The process of reviewing and updating the content of national job profiles will not in itself lead to any automatic re-banding of nursing and midwifery staff.
It has been confirmed that job profiles will be reviewed separately for nursing and midwifery.
Professor Alison Leary, chair of healthcare and workforce modelling at London South Bank University, said the review was “timely”.
Alison Leary
She told Nursing Times it was “clear that job roles have moved on” and said there were “anachronisms in the current ones”.
For example, she explained that “specialist” was currently written as a level of practice and not classed as “advanced”.
Professor Leary said she hoped the review would “aid clarity around the type and value of the roles in the NHS”.
Meanwhile, Clare Jacobs, RCN national officer, said: “Nursing is a highly educated and skilled profession which has changed hugely in recent years as nursing knowledge, skills and responsibilities have developed.
“The profiles were originally developed reflecting the knowledge and skills of nursing roles 20 years ago and need urgent revision to reflect the full depth of nursing now.”
For over 25 years the role of the Surgical Care Practitioner undertaken by RN’s and other HPC’s, has continued under the fog of national role progression.
The need for an advanced practice registration within the NMC / HCPC Registers, to provide patient safety parameters, professional recognition, and parity across advanced practice domain. Hope this review considers this desired outcome?
Adrian Jones RN | SCP | FFPCEd
Former President of the Association for Perioperative Practice
http://www.afpp.org.uk
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