'Shame on us nurses'

Following the Care Quality Commission's recent report on what it called "alarmingly" poor care for elderly hospital patients, leading nurse Prof Ian Peate says in this week's Scrubbing Up that the profession should look again at how it trains people to look after older people.

Once again we read about the disgraceful care of our elderly and frail population and once again I cringe with embarrassment as I read how we abuse the people who we have the privilege to care for.

Yes I know there are some excellent examples of high quality outstanding care provided to people. But there is something seriously wrong here.

Nursing is well on its way to setting minimum standards for a degree level nursing programme and justifiably so, given the complexities of care and the demands the public rightly make in insisting on high quality, safe and effective care.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) regulates nurses and midwives in the UK.

It sets standards for education, attempting to ensure that nurses possess the right skills and qualities when they start work as a qualified nurse.

What the NMC does not do is stipulate any mandatory requirements for elderly care. They leave this up to the individual educational institutions, so each will approach the teaching of elderly care in a variety of ways.

The time has come for the NMC to compel those running courses to stipulate how much time should be dedicated to the care of the elderly, in practice and theory.

There is a need to ensure that students of nursing - our future staff nurses who will be looking after me when I am older - are able to care confidently and competently for older people - geriatrics.

'High touch' - not high-tech

The art and science of gerontology has all but gone and this is a pity.

As a nursing student I was privileged to take a course that instilled in me the skills required to care for geriatrics patients, responding to their unique needs as people who have a number of concurrent illnesses and take a variety of medications.

If nurses get the care of older people right by applying the theory to practice, paying attention to feeding them and providing them with fluids, washing and cleaning them when they are unable to wash themselves, communicating with them and encouraging them through caring, kindness and compassion then caring for other patients will come naturally.

These are high level skills that require the nurse to apply scientific principles to the art of caring.

As a student I was assessed, on the job - by an experienced nurse - in caring for geriatric patients. But that specific check is no longer required.

We should not be ashamed, embarrassed or made to feel politically incorrect when using the term geriatric.

It is a speciality, with care provided by skilled practitioners, on the geriatric ward as opposed to a busy acute medical ward where high-tech is favoured and preferred over "high-touch".

We have witnessed our medical colleagues embrace so-called "soft skills" (communication skills, a good bedside manner) through their improved undergraduate education.

NMC take heed.

Demand the curriculum you validate has explicit elements of geriatric care in them, in the classroom and on the ward; direct that no student will progress if they do not pass the an elderly care part of their course; continue to reinforce the need for all staff to speak out when they witness substandard or abusive care but also insist that those who speak out are supported.

Shame on us nurses.

We need to say sorry to our patients and to tell them what we are going to do to get it right, and we need to be brought to account each time we fail to provide care that is compassionate, kind and humane.