The future of mental health nursing: are we barking up the wrong tree?

Abstract

This commentary has been prompted by a degree of disquiet among the UK mental health nursing community in response to the Shape of Caring Review on the future of nurse education in England (Willis 2015). Proposals for the structure of nurse education have been interpreted as emphasizing generic at the expense of field-specific (e.g. mental health) education, with much specialist training beyond the scope of pre-registration courses (Lintern 2014, Middleton 2015). Specifically, there is a suggestion that student nurses will not enter their specialized field until completing two years of more generalist learning; reminiscent of the previous Project 2000 approach, criticized for supposed inadequate preparation of mental health students because general adult nursing dominated curriculum and teaching (UKCC 1999).