Nurses 'too posh to wash' miss vital symptoms

A new generation of nurses are becoming "too posh to wash", the Royal College of Nursing congress was told. If nurses refused to carry out basic jobs such as washing patients they were in danger of missing out on vital signs concerning their overall well-being.

Delegates voted by 95 per cent against a motion that "the caring component of nursing should be devolved to health care assistants".

Jeremy Bore, a prison service nurse, told the congress in Harrogate that the role of health care assistants was important and praised the work they did. But he said a growing number of nurses felt that basic elements of their job should be passed to the lesser qualified assistants so they could concentrate on more technical treatments.

"We are seeing a small but significant minority of new generation nurses who are saying that they don't want to do basic holistic care. That is very disturbing," he said.

Mr Bore, a resident general nurse at Exeter Prison, said that washing people and keeping their mouths clean and fresh were tasks that were easy to carry out and intimate matters for patients.

Mr Bore said nurses had the authority to go where no other professional could go.

He claimed high-profile government initiatives, such as extending prescribing powers to nurses, were taking the attention away from the basic role of nurses.