Blog: Marking International Nurses' Day
Marking International Nurses’ day, Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Scotland Director Susan Aitkenhead reflects on the key role of nursing in social care.
Each year Nurses’ day - the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth - provides us with an opportunity to shine a particular spotlight on the fantastic contribution of Scotland’s nursing staff.
This year, I am aware that readers will already appreciate the exceptional role that nursing has played in Scotland’s pandemic response and I am particularly delighted to be writing for Age Scotland on such an important day for the profession.
An element of Age Scotland’s vision states that ‘everyone should have the opportunity to live happily and well, for as long as they can’. This will strike a chord with all nurses across the country and certainly underpins the delivery of care, whether during a pandemic or in everyday practice.
There has been a significant change to ways of working during the response to COVID-19. For those delivering health and care across the sectors this has often meant having to practise in different ways to look after patients in the safest and most effective way possible. Supporting our more vulnerable within society has always been a priority, but this became even more of an urgent focus during the pandemic, and I would specifically like to acknowledge today the essential role of nursing staff in caring for care home residents.
Recently Scotland’s care homes and the wider provision of social care has been a key talking point of the election campaigns – the pandemic having also highlighted many of the inequalities between the provision of health and care services.
As we know care homes are caring for people with increasingly complex clinical needs including multiple long-term conditions. Nurses rapidly respond to a change or deterioration in a resident’s condition often reducing the need for hospital admission and enabling people to remain in their home to receive care in a familiar environment. Nursing also has an important role in areas such as end of life care, ensuring that those approaching the end of their lives are supported to die, as far as is practically possible, in the way that they wish with the people they love.
As the complexity of residents’ clinical needs increase, the skills, competencies and availability of the registered nursing workforce employed within care homes is ever more important. However, there is a need for more registered nurses to follow a rewarding and interesting career path into care home nursing and which must be addressed.
As we look to a new parliament, we can expect to see the plans for a National Care Service taking shape. The RCN asks that whatever model of reform is pursued, the critical and central role of nursing in both leading and delivering ongoing clinical care to some of our most vulnerable is clearly recognised.
With our partners across health and social care, the RCN will continue to influence and shape the reform of Scotland’s social care sector as this work progresses. Today we reflect on the work of those nurses who have done so much for others and we sincerely thank them.
More information about RCN Scotland is available here.
