VERSION|0.5.1|NAME|Matt Westwood|DATE|1366789391|CONTENT|A serious subject platituded up.

As the man on the radio said a while ago: &quot;Recruit for values, train for skills.&quot;

From my (limited) experience and from what my (rather more highly experienced) wife says, it does sound like a good idea to give nurses more hands-on experience at the messy and unglamorous end of nursing. If at the end of that period they are still keen on being nurses, then indeed, they probably have the right stuff.

The danger comes when you demand that nurses (and other, &quot;low-end&quot;, carers, come to that) attain an academic qualification before being allowed to practice. This has two unnecessary side-effects: it unfairly filters out those fully competent nurses who are not academically inclined, and it can lead to these academicaly-qualified nurses believing that now they are graduates, the physical business of providing personal care is somewhat beneath them.

In other news, in the social care industry, council contracts have been put out to tender, with the effect that clients are paying more for a reduced level of service, and the providers (who have had to take on employment with these criminally profit-driven cowboy outfits) get paid less to do more.|EMAIL|prime.mover@proofwiki.org|IP-ADDRESS|81.142.211.61|MODERATIONFLAG|