Tertiary Education a Requirement for Future Nurses

Four years from now, nurses will be required to have a degree, the main education protest in the history of the NHS.

The goal of this announcement is to improve patient care and help nurses to bump up their position since they are known as the "handmaidens" of the doctors. However, others think of this move as an expensive period of study. Many people may not continue their nursing career. If this happens, qualified nurses with degrees will feel overqualified when doing tasks like taking patients to the toilet. They will just feel too lowly. According to Ann Keen, the Health Minister, the degree requirement will be implemented by 2013. The standards developed by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) will require the nurses to have an equivalent international qualification. If nurses will have more responsibility and training in the decision-making in clinical judgments hospitals can guarantee new nurses will convene the challenges of tomorrow.

The decision was supported by all "four key nursing bodies" and nurses will undergo in a three-year review by the NMC. In three month consultation period will begin this January 2010. According to Peter Carter, Chief Executive of the Royal College of Nursing, The decision is not about the restriction in the entry of nurses, we just want to widen the nursing skills. The nurse education system will encourage the best entrants to follow a career in care. The expenses in pursuing a nursing degree would be okay because when they finished the program and find better job that will benefit themselves as well as their patients, they will help young people to motivate to pursue the tertiary education. Competency is the big word in this transformation. [via telegraph.co.uk]