The erosion of mental health nursing: the implications of the move towards genericism

Abstract

This article casts a critical lens on the current Nursing and Midwifery Council standards for nurse education and their potential impact on mental health nursing in the UK. It discusses how the standards appear to be transitioning mental health nursing towards a generic, task-orientated nursing role and in doing so, are undervaluing the unique contributions of the profession to contemporary mental health care. It also argues that this descent towards genericism not only risks the erosion of the specialist skill set required of mental health nurses by service users, but also aligns mental health nursing care closer with neoliberal policy and with biomedicine to the further detriment of patient care. This article warns that this current period marks a critical time for the profession and that collective, assertive action is needed now to safeguard the profession's distinct presence on the UK's nursing register.