Marking International Nurses Day, Care UK’s most senior nurse, Rachel Gilbert, has called for more recognition of the work nurses do in social care settings.
Thursday 12 May marked International Nurses Day, and as professional lead to Care UK’s 1,194 registered nurses working across its 152 homes, Rachel Gilbert is well-known as an advocate of nursing in social care.
Rachel said: “Nurses are a keystone of care home life; their thoughtful, skilled input helps residents in care homes to live their best life. This is anything from the way they get to know people so well they can spot if something isn’t right with their health, to helping care colleagues support people at the end of their life to pass away comfortably and peacefully in their own bed, rather than being rushed to an unfamiliar hospital. Yet still, for many people, when they think of celebrating nurses, their only image is the nurse on a hospital ward.
“Increasingly, nurses are realising that social care nursing offers a very rewarding career pathway and care homes are true nurse-led care settings. In most cases in hospital, patients come and go swiftly but in a care home, residents can live there for a decade or more, and nurses have the privilege of building a relationship with them and their families and help to keep them healthy and enabled in a way that often isn’t possible in the community. I hope we can now spread the word among the public about just how valuable social care nurses are.
“I’d like to see the media, politicians, even television drama editors showing the incredible work nurses do in care homes and how so many of them rise to very senior roles like managing a care home. That way, society will have a more nuanced understanding of the breadth of roles us nurses can play and who knows, perhaps it will inspire young people to want to nurse in that setting.”
