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Plenary, 27 Sep 2001

27 Sep 2001 · S1 · Plenary

Item of business

“Value Nurses” Campaign

Sturgeon, Nicola SNP Glasgow Watch on SPTV

I congratulate Margaret Smith on securing today's welcome debate. I also add my support to the RCN's value nurses campaign. The minister and I are joining the RCN for dinner later this evening, so if the minister wants hot soup, he should reflect carefully on his comments.

The motion raises some hard issues that we must address. To put it simply, we are facing a crisis of morale and recruitment in the nursing profession. We have heard many of the statistics already this afternoon: there are 1,000 fewer nurses in our hospitals today than there were four years ago; vacancies are up by 50 per cent in the last year alone; a quarter of our nurses are set to retire in the next 10 years; the same proportion of student nurses drop out before the completion of their courses. Many more students who complete their courses will go abroad or south of the border where they think, quite rightly, that nurses' conditions are better.

To avert the impending crisis, we need action now. I welcome the fact that the date for the nursing summit has at last been set, but at this stage we need not more words but practical policies. We need to bring more young people into the profession. We need more flexible nurse training opportunities and measures to tackle student poverty. The increase in bursaries that the Deputy Minister for Health and Community Care announced earlier this year was welcome but did not go far enough. The average debt of student nurses is nearly £4,000. We also need policies to bring back into the health service some of the 10,000 qualified nurses who are not currently working. We have heard a lot tonight about return-to-practice courses, which are a simple but important measure that the Government could commit itself to.

We need policies to retain nurses within the profession and give them more career development opportunities. There are thousands of nurse consultant posts south of the border, but only 12 in Scotland. We need more opportunities for nurses to progress in their careers while staying within clinical practice. Tommy Sheridan is right that we need action to tackle low pay within the nursing profession. The Government could and should adopt such practical policies to solve the problem before it gets out of hand.

However, politicians can do something more. They can do something that is perhaps less tangible than the practical measures that I have mentioned. Quite simply—if I may use the title of the RCN campaign—we can value nurses. We can make it clear that we value nurses. That would mean valuing in its entirety the contribution that nurses make. As Alex Neil said, the contribution that nurses make goes way beyond clinical practice. It also means never falling into the trap, or rising to the temptation, of berating nurses or other health professionals simply because they point out the problems that they face day in, day out. Politicians can contribute. This is not rocket science; it is just common sense. A crisis faces us; but if we take action now we can avert that crisis and send a loud and clear message to our nurses that we value them.

Without wanting to break the spirit of consensus, I have to say that it would have been the most positive of gestures to our nursing profession had Susan Deacon been present in this debate this evening. However, let us stop talking. Let us take the things that we have talked about tonight and let us put them into practice. The time for talking is over; the time for action is now.

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Plenary, 27 Sep 2001

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