I have worked in the NHS for 12 years—as a healthcare assistant on a surgical ward, as a maternity support worker in a maternity unit, as a breast-feeding support worker in the health visiting service and as a healthy-child assistant. I am now training as a nursing associate.
I have always wanted to work in nursing and considered applying to university at the age of 18, but decided against it. Then came the responsibility of a mortgage and a child, so I continued in my support worker roles to ensure I was still working within care and that I could provide for my family.
I first heard about the nursing associate role 3 years ago when it was a pilot scheme launched by Health Education England in response to the Francis report (2013) and the disparities identified between registered and unregistered staff. The Trust that I work for had applied to be a pilot site and were keen to allow their staff to develop their existing skills.
Having worked in various roles and in different specialties, I could see, even then, what a valuable addition it would be to the nursing family—it would free up registered nurses (RNs) to concentrate on patients with more complex needs and they could be safe in the knowledge that a registered, accountable practitioner who is able to plan, implement and evaluate care, as well as give medication, is caring for the other patients. But the role isn't just to free up the time of RNs, it has been created with patient safety as the top priority and an aim to create a mix of roles that complement one another.
We are not RNs, we don't claim to be. We are practitioners in our own right. We are trained in the four fields of nursing; we study while working full time and completing placements. We have our own pre-registration standards to work to. These have been produced by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) (2018a) and we are also bound by the same code of practice as registered nurses and midwives (NMC, 2018b).
Having recently attended the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Congress, I was disappointed at the lack of awareness around our role and, in some circumstances, the hostility towards the role. We have been compared to the state enrolled nurse (SEN) role, but we are not SENs. We have chosen to do this role because we are passionate about care and want to develop professionally. The experience that each member of my cohort has is vast and this experience is being put to good use as nursing associates. We all work in different areas—in high-secure mental hospitals, general wards, district nursing, endoscopy, general practice and health visiting services. We can share our practice and learn from each other.
The NHS could not function without its support staff. Nursing associates have our own patients to care for, working with other support staff. This will free RNs time to spend time with those patients with complex needs, enabling them to get to know those patients and notice changes. It will help RNs get back to what they were trained to do—nurse.
RNs have drug rounds, ward rounds and never-ending paperwork. I know how hard it is, I've witnessed it on the wards and in the community countless times. I'm also married to a community nurse and I know how hard he works, finishing late and working on his days off just to keep up with the constant demands. Nursing associates are here to help relieve this pressure, help you get home on time, have an actual break and care for your patients—you just need to let us.
We are all in this line of work because we care and because we are passionate about making a difference to those in our care. But we need to care for each other, support each other and recognise the value and skills that all members of the team bring.
This has been far from an easy option, in all honesty it's the hardest thing I've ever done. Balancing all the demands on my time is difficult and to continue to be the wife, mother and health professional I want to be can sometimes feel impossible. However, gaining knowledge and becoming a registered professional is the ultimate prize and I will continue to juggle.
Providing excellent care to the families and children I care for is my priority and I'm so excited for the future of nursing associates. We are here to support RNs, not to take their roles away from them so, please, be excited with us and support us in our journey to becoming registered practitioners.