What is it about?
This article explains why a generic curriculum for nurse education is neither within the interests of the mental health nurse profession, or the Service Users we treat. It admits that changes to nurse education in the UK were needed, although suggests that changes to the standards underpinning nurse education, and how these have been operationalised though practice assessment documents, have aligned mental health nursing closer with neoliberalism and to the biomedical model. This is ultimately to the detriment of those we care for.
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Why is it important?
This commentary article aims to stimulate critical discussion around the *type* of skills needed by mental health nurses and the *extent* to which these are required. Having mental health nursing students, for instance, chase redundant, procedural-based physical health skills in practice, may be at the expense of developing other skills considered more essential to the role, such as those needed to support interpersonal connections and relational working with individuals.
Perspectives
It is argued here that a generic curriculum is likely to take mental health nurses further away from the nurses that our Service Users need us to be and that if we are not careful, the focus upon the biomedical model could perpetuate 'us and them' cultures. It is hoped that this article stimulates debate around what mental health nursing is and it's future.
Mr Michael Haslam
University of Central Lancashire
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The erosion of mental health nursing: the implications of the move towards genericism, British Journal of Mental Health Nursing, January 2023, Mark Allen Group,
DOI: 10.12968/bjmh.2022.0039.
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