“Make your voice louder in social care”

Dually qualified as an adult and children’s nurse, Joanna Grant has had an exceptional career in social care, supporting children and young people with complex health and care needs to live at home, go to school and university and, most importantly, live their lives the way they and their families want.

“My clear message is: raise your voice and be proud of your work as a nurse.”

Lucy Gillespie

Joanna proposed a resolution “that the RCN Congress recognises the value and need for senior nurses in social care across the UK”.

Joanna spoke passionately and eloquently about the sector and the importance of taking care to higher levels to reduce the “real risk that care could suffer”.

Katharina Simkiss is Community Lead for General Nursing at Barchester Oak Grange, a care home in Cheshire. She supported the resolution, citing her 17 years in the NHS and eight years in social care, during which she developed further clinical skills and a professional practice that “blew her away”.

This was her first speech at the RCN Congress and she describes how energised she was by the energy and enthusiasm of the senior nurses in adult social care.

At the end of her speech, she urged the audience to remember that if they were really serious about “reducing field maintenance, they must start supporting social care”.

Both speakers received applause and cheers of support from the audience and the resolution was passed overwhelmingly.

A few weeks ago, I also attended the launch of the Filipinos in Care Association. I heard passionate and proud nurses, caregivers, housekeepers and other members of the care team speak enthusiastically about working in this sector.

They spoke about difference and the desire to be recognized as Filipinos, who, incidentally, make up nearly 48,000 of our 808,000 nursing workforce.

Whatever your background, if you work in any role in social care or nursing, people need to hear your voice – within the profession, within the system, within the sector itself and within the wider community.

We must advocate for nursing in social care as a nurse-led, autonomous professional practice that creates and enables care environments that are person-centred, build meaningful relationships and ensure individual choice and control.

In this context, we also need to reach out to our students and sensitise them to social care in pre- and post-registration programmes to meet the NMC’s expectation that a newly qualified nurse can meet nursing performance standards in any setting.

We will be promoting the value of social care at our upcoming event in partnership with Salford University on 18 July.

Here we bring together universities, social workers and providers to explore best practices in program content, internship opportunities and post-registration program development.

Here you can book your place at the free event – ​​Appreciating social care in nursing education

My clear message is: raise your voice and be proud of your work as a nurse.

Lucy Gillespie is a national nurse at Skills for Care