Chapter 12
Student Nurse Days
‘Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.’ Earl Nightingale
Handing my notice in at Dolcis in November 1989, during the time of the fall of the Berlin wall, felt surreal. Here was I, living in the time of perhaps one of the most remarkable events of the late twentieth century. Six weeks later, I was to start my student nurse training.
As we walked through those classroom doors on 2nd January 1990, we were entering one of the most controversial and revolutionary periods within contemporary nursing history. We just didn’t know it. We had known that many newly qualified nurses were struggling to get jobs, but I reckoned we would always need nurses. So, training to be a nurse not only meant a job for life, but it also meant I would always be able to pay my way. How right I was. Today, we have more than 43,000 nurse vacancies in England alone. An absolute travesty.
I trained at the time when we were trained on the job, paid to be on the wards [although it paid less than my Dolcis job] and included in the staffing numbers. However, this certificate, apprentice style training, was soon to be phased out and by the middle of the decade Project 2000 had been implemented. A training programme, which focused on a student nurses academic abilities for the job, rather than clinical experience, Project 2000 proffered nursing students university status, who would on completion graduate with a diploma. It was about this time that the nursing lecturers moved from the hospital classrooms to the university. I think this change was probably quite a shock to the nursing lecturers of the time and as far as I am aware very little has ever been written about the transition required.
Project 2000 nurses were also given supernumerary status on the wards, and therefore were not paid, which meant a shortage of nursing staff would soon become apparent. Not receiving a salary for three years must have been particularly challenging. Project 2000, was also eventually phased out and nursing became an all graduate profession in 2013.
Many say something was lost when nurse training moved into the universities, and there were outcries of nurses being ‘too posh to wash’, in the noughties. Indeed, the Guardian ran a page on this very subject in May 2004, but I say it’s a great thing. Nursing care and outcomes are so much better with degree nurses working on the wards. And who can argue against that. Today, many students commence training at master’s level, already having a degree in a health-related subject. I think this is an amazing step forward and as an e-tutor, I support these students to achieve their potential. Perhaps it’s not too far away when all student nurses will be trained at master’s level; although probably not in my lifetime.
As I began my student nurse training, The National Health Service and Community Care Act was taking centre stage. This Act required local authorities to support vulnerable people to stay in the community for as long as possible by providing efficient and sustainable care packages. Little did I know this Act was to have a long-term effect on my nursing career, preferring the more personalised, slower side of community care, rather than the more fast paced, dynamic life associated with the hospitals.
At the same time psychiatric hospitals were beginning to close and people who lived in these hospitals were being moved into community homes, creating concern for some and celebration for others. Still it happened, despite the controversy and is now a regular feature of community care.
I always enjoyed supporting and mentoring other students and on qualification I quickly completed my assessor training so I could support healthcare assistants to achieve their National Vocational Qualifications (NVQ). I was probably quite forward thinking at the time.
It didn’t stop there and when I moved into occupational health, I completed my practice teacher module, a specialist mentor qualification so I could support registered nurses completing their occupational health qualifications. Eventually I was to teach this module.
Disappointingly, not every nurse willingly supports students, which I think is an absolute travesty. If it hadn’t been for mentors, they wouldn’t have been able to qualify. We certainly need to get a grip.
It’s hard to believe I am now retired, although I retain my nurse registration for another three years at least. The way in which nurses retain their registration has also changed, and now all nurses have to undertake a process called revalidation as a means of ensuring skills and knowledge are maintained. Although it’s a good idea, I personally feel it pays lip service, with many nurses doing nothing more, than keeping this up-to-date. Hardly an endorsement for an all-graduate profession.
I loved being a student nurse. Our start was tinged by sadness as our tutor died about six months later. My clinical placements began on a medical ward and ended on a medical ward. In the first year it was medical; surgical; A&E and orthopaedics. Second year was similar, always a medical and surgical placement. This time instead of A&E and orthopods [as it came to be affectionately known] we had midwifery; hospice care; community; a hint of occupational health, and a stint on nights. Theatre came in our third year if my memory serves me correctly, along with elderly care.
At the time, when we were taught practical skills, there wasn’t much we could ‘practice on’, and most of it we learned on the job. Today, most universities who teach nursing, have multi-million-pound simulation suites. Back then we practiced giving injections on an orange, then went on to the wards to deliver care to our patients.
Everyone has to learn don’t they? but it’s better today. I remember a tutor telling us when she trained to be a nurse, they tasted urine to test for diabetes because it would taste of sugar. Whether true or not I’ll never know, you didn’t question so easily back then.
