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When is a nurse not a nurse? Reflections on the NMC register

Tony Long1

  • 1Salford Centre for Nursing, Midwifery & Collaborative Research, University of Salford, UK. t.long@salford.ac.uk

Community Practitioner : the Journal of the Community Practitioners' & Health Visitors' Association
|December 27, 2005
PubMed

Reform of the U.K. Nursing and Midwifery Council professional register has been undertaken through consultation over a period of some seven years from 1997, and in some aspects implementation remains ongoing. This paper reflects on the progress of the consultation and on its outcome: the provision of a professional register with three parts, the third part being designated for Registered Specialist Community Public Health Nurses. Confusion over the reasoning which led to this development is explored, in particular the status of health visiting as a profession distinct from nursing and midwifery and its place within the third part of the register. It is concluded that the arrangements for the third part which emanated from the consultation are contradictory and illogical.

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