A rich history and a rewarding career: CWPT encourages people to consider mental health nursing
This Mental Health Nurse’s Day, Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust (CWPT) reflects on the history of mental health nursing in the UK and encourages people to consider this rewarding and varied career.
Mental health nursing has always been a key part of the health and social care system, but the landscape of mental health nursing and the scope of a nurse’s practice looks very different today.
A brief look back
Early mental health nurses worked in psychiatric facilities, and before the first national training scheme was introduced in 1891, they learnt of the job, guided by handbooks and their colleagues.
Today mental health nursing is one of four branches of nursing and requires a Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) approved degree to register and practice, but mental health nursing was not always recognised in this way.
In 1919 the Nurses Registration Act required nurses to register by law for the first time. While mental health nurses were included, they were on a supplementary part of the register. It was in 1983 that the Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting set up a new register identifying four branches of nursing which recognised mental health nursing equally alongside adult, children’s and learning disability nursing.
At the same time, a shift towards increased community care in the 1960’s saw the scope of the role and the variety of settings mental health nurses could work in expand significantly.
Impact of mental health nurses in Coventry and Warwickshire
Today there are over 700 mental health nurses working at CWPT, who make up approximately 20% of the Trust’s workforce. CWPT is proud to have nurses working across a wide range of services, many of which are nurse-led, providing holistic assessment, treatment, and support to help people adapt and recover from mental ill health across Coventry and Warwickshire.
In the community, nurses make a lifechanging difference in services such as RISE (specialist community mental health services for children and young people), eating disorders, perinatal mental health, the homeless mental health service and much more.
In inpatient and urgent care services nurses provide intensive support in hospitals and to those experiencing crisis.
Nurses are the backbone of many of the Trust’s mental health services for patients, their families, and colleagues within and beyond CWPT.
New roles and evolving practice
The role of the modern-day mental health nurse in the NHS continues to evolve in new and exciting ways. Nurses at CWPT have gone on to become advanced clinical practitioners, nurse consultants, non-medical prescribers, to name a few. As well as developing their clinical skills mental health nurses also have opportunities to go into research, education, academics, and operational management.
Now, nurses at CWPT are developing to become approved clinicians, approved by the secretary of state to undertake some decisions under the Mental Health Act. Prior to an amendment to the Mental Health Act in 2007, these duties could only be carried out by psychiatrists.
Multi-professional approved clinician training (MPAC) is open to a range of mental health professionals, and CWPT is proud to have mental health nurses undertaking or recently completing the training.
Marie Nicholls and Rebecca Nash are a year into their training. Both are mental health nurses by profession and have worked in a variety of roles that involved both clinical and operational responsibilities at CWPT.
They said: “We had both reached a point in our careers where the opportunity to undertake a new role that was focussed on direct patient care and clinical leadership was exciting.”
Once Marie and Rebecca have achieved approved clinician status, they will work in the Trust’s adult inpatient mental health services and be responsible for a caseload of patients.
“We are just coming to the end of the first year of the trainee role which has been challenging and intense but also very rewarding. It has involved completion of a PG Cert in applied mental health law alongside working towards our independent prescribing qualifications. We have also been working clinically within inpatient services.”
“The development of MPAC roles within the organisation is exciting as it provides a new pathway for career progression and development of clinical leadership.”
There is no ceiling to what a mental health nurse can achieve and the difference they can make.
This Mental Health Nurses Day, CWPT is encouraging people to get into mental health nursing. Visit NHS Health Careers to find out more.