Senior Nurses Need Respect

The Royal College of Nursing ran focus groups with 90 NHS ward sisters. Published yesterday (February 26), their report examines how the role is working in practice at English hospital trusts.

These nurses must be "expert clinical practitioners, the hub of information going between all health care staff, the ward leader, the educator for students and newly qualified staff, and the manager filling in paper work and recruiting staff", the report says.

But it found that "work urgently needs to done to strengthen and support the role for the delivery of high-quality nursing". Where the ward sister and charge nurse role is supervisory, patient care is of a better quality.

Dr Peter Carter of the RCN writes in the foreword that: "Ward sisters and charge nurses have many roles, but their responsibility is clear - to oversee patient care on a ward.

"All ward sisters must have the authority and the resources to make their wards run as well as they possibly can, and this report shows that where this has already happened, patients feel the benefits."

It concludes that the pressure on ward sisters from personnel issues and having patients allocated to them has made it impossible to appropriately lead, manage and supervise clinical practice and the ward environment.

"This is not acceptable to the RCN and needs urgent remedy," the report states. All ward sisters must become supervisory, so they can oversee care delivery, the ward, and be visible as the nurse leader in charge of the ward, it recommends.