​

With the NHS experiencing its busiest month ever during last December, they’re now turning their eyes to nurses for a solution. In the upcoming months, nurses may soon be pressured into embarking on a two-year-course to train them to perform surgical procedures as a way of cutting in half the ridiculously long NHS wait times.

​

The course will train them to become ‘surgical care practitioners’ as to assist overworked surgeons with their already constant pile on of work. This will hold nurses responsible for carrying out the procedures such as removing hernias, certain skin cancers, and benign cysts, but it doesn’t limit them to just that. Nurses are also going to have to carry out key tasks during major surgeries like heart bypasses and hip and knee replacements.

​

The plans are expected to be announced during next month’s NHS People Plan, despite the uproar from healthcare professionals. With the critics saying that this could make nurse shortages even worse and back nurses into a corner as they force heavier duties onto them. Not everyone is against the idea though, Professor Michael Griffin, president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, shared his thoughts on it by saying ‘We’re totally supportive of this. We have very little anxiety about this.’ He went on to talk about how bad the waiting times for surgeries are becoming and how even the smallest of operations could be managed better and more efficiently.

​

If a nurse chooses to go through with the training, they’ll be overseen by the Nursing and Midwifery Council and will earn roughly double the amount of their current salary. With Surgical care practitioners earning close to £50,000 per year and nurses earning £25,000 per year.

​

Do you think this is a right step in fixing the constant pressure of work flooding in for NHS staff?

​