The clinical activity of mental health nurse lecturers

Concerns have been expressed about the ability of mental health lecturers to prepare practitioners with the skills, knowledge and attitudes needed to implement the National Service Framework for mental health. Specifically mental health nurse lecturers have been criticized for lacking clinical competence and credibility, and for being out of touch with developments in service delivery. This paper presents a selection of findings from a recent review into the clinical activity of mental health lecturers in higher education institutions in England. The issues discussed include roles in practice, questioning the value of face-to-face clinical work, the benefits of being clinically active, the difficulties of clinical academic roles, barriers to maintaining clinical activity, questioning the quality of the clinical workforce, and finally strategies to facilitate clinical activity. Whilst there is support among mental health nurse lecturers for the need to engage with practice at some level, there are inconsistencies in the ways that this is being achieved. Lecturers are, however, getting together to debate how best to keep up with changes in mental health practice and delivery.