This essay will explore the social perceptions that Mental Health nurses face, brought about by the media, history and peoples personal experiences which can be passed around the community with exaggeration. It will the be explained how this view on nursing effects modern day practice, the creation of new legislation and my personal path into this career.
As a prospective Mental health nursing student I was told by a RGN that mental health nurses are not “proper” nurses and are only qualified to listen to delusions which could have been detrimental to my career. Both types of nurses should be working as a multidisciplinary team not against each other. Patients with mental health issues may sometimes have physical health issues in which adult or child nurses should be trained to deal with certain challenging situations, therefore learning from mental health nurses or vise versa would be a benefit to the profession and ensure a holistic environment for patients.
Sharma et al (2010) discovered that people would rather care be preserved for patients who are suffering from physical ailments over patients who are diagnosed with mental health issues. This piece of research has shown that society, regardless of how attitudes towards mental health have become more knowledgeable, still sees mental health patients as less in need of care. This attitude directly effects mental health nurses as maybe they are seen as wasting their talents or choosing a less important role than adult nursing.
With an understanding of abuse cases that have happened in care settings across the country, professionals and governing bodies have been able to construct new legislations and shape old ones. For example, the Mental Health Act 1989 was re-evaluated in 2007 to focus more on public protection and risk management, these crucial changes have shaped the way nurses are trained and now practise. This is arguably the only positive thing that has emerged because of these abuse cases and however horrific these cases are, it gives new and existing nurses an insight into what not to do and also what to look out for within a health setting to stop this from happening again.
Since the emergence of cases such as Winterbourne view, Morecombe bay and Mid Staffordshire hospital, the whistleblowing policy has become a lot more accessible and the first ever national whistleblowing policy for the NHS was published this year making reporting abuse less of a taboo subject between professionals which can only make nurses and healthcare professionals look more trustworthy and respected within the community. The downside of more people being rightly accused is that the community find out that there are more problems in the services they use than what they first believed. This can be detrimental to our community’s health, especially for patients with mental health issues as if they do not access the support they need, because they do not trust the service, it could put the service user and the people around them at risk.
ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA
Even though social media might portray the nursing profession mostly in a bad light, there must still be a perception that nurses are good people and that nursing is a good profession else the profession would be dying out and there would be no more perspective nurses, like me. I decided to become a mental health nurse as I had have only ever heard praise for the ones that work in our community, looking after the people that others had given up on. I have had experience being the user of mental health services and although I had a bad experience with a service, it showed me that I could look after people like me because I understand exactly how they want to be treated. I also had some very positive experiences of these settings, one night the community mental health crisis team came to see me, one was an experienced nurse, the other a student, they both showed me that I wasn’t abnormal and actually it could be an advantage one day, like it was for the student visiting me.