Putting the boot in............

I think I may be in trouble with this posting…we’ll see.

The papers last week [and media in general] were awash with stories about a rugby team/Fleet Street/ poor independent nursing care in elderly patient’s houses and, again today, with a rugby captain- all accused of bringing their businesses into question over integrity and professionalism.

I used the shenanigans [or reported shenanigans] of the England Rugby Team as an example last week in a session [I know, as a Scot, I accept my first “be careful” from you] to explore and unpick with a group of nurses and health care support staff the meaning of professionalism, professional practice and what happens when it all goes wrong.

Being hot off the press, there was a lot to talk about but there was also that luxury of being able to critique, but not criticise. The opportunity was too good to miss, to analyse while on neutral territory - what is professionalism and what makes “you” a professional.  Not always an easy one to facilitate as it can spark heated debate especially with different groups of healthcare staff in the same room. 

Now, the Nursing and Midwifery Council, as gatekeepers, make a good case for what is appropriate in the role of a nurse and midwife and set underlying rules on what a professional must do within the code. There a four core principles of the code for trained staff and they give direction but, alas, no solid template for those in support roles:

Make the care of people your first concern, treating them as individuals and respecting their dignity.

Work with others to protect and promote the health and wellbeing of those in your care, their families and carers, and the wider community.

Provide a high standard of practice and care at all times.

Be open and honest, act with integrity and uphold the reputation of your profession.

Being the facilitator last week, with most of the cards up my sleeve, I wasn’t expecting

“Hello…it’s you isn’t it…the man who was clamped?”

Now as introductions go, that’s a good one! Left field for sure.

It transpired that an impromptu anecdotal story to explain professional behaviour [damn that media projector] I gave to a large crowd of promising student nurses [and their collective parents/partners/ children] on a university open day, was evidently more interesting than I thought. 

While trying to kindly ask two sizeable wheel clampers to remove a clamp from my front wheel on a very damp late afternoon [just after work] in a train station car park in North London, let's just say that feathers were ruffled. To cut a long story short, the clampers were illegal and brazen. 


With a large wheel wrench in hand they were pretty secure in their aspirations that my wallet would be a few hundred pounds lighter that afternoon, before I went on my way. It’s true to say that a small scuffle [note: pushing and general shouting] took place and it was only when I caught the reflection in my car side mirror of  me wearing my NHS name badge that I stopped in my tracks – I knew the consequences, professionally, of a vigorous push becoming a living nightmare and my NMC Registration being put at risk [the Register, quite rightly, is well protected]. The boys in blue were quick on the scene to remove the wheel brace from my facial vicinity but nonetheless, it could been a different story. The moral remains, you are always on duty- "professional" duty.

So interestingly then that a recent publication sheds some decent guidance, where the NMC fail consistently to, on what professionalism actually is and what you really need to do to be a professional within the delivery of healthcare. A research report from The Health Professionals Council (HPC) offers helpful wisdom about the term professionalism and clarity on it’s meaning:

"It is not perceived as an absolute, but constructed in the interaction of individual and context."

The HPC offer :

Definition of Professionalism

Adherence to codes / regulations / protocols, appearance,

appropriate behaviour / attitudes / communication, context, development over time,  external perceptions

good clinical care, holistic construct, ongoing development (keeping up to date), part of self and role boundaries

They also note contributing factors to professionalism as being:

Source of Professionalism

Education / training, learning on the job, organisational environment, personal background, previous employment (paid / voluntary), regulations as source, role models and, the media.

 I think we’ve seen enough in the media last week about what professionalism is not.

Let’s hope the healthcare and education professions are represented/reflected fairly and come across well in the media this week during the planned strike action.