NOT ONLY are they too posh to wash, but today’s nurses are too posh for nosh. “I don’t do food,” says one nurse in Nursing Standard (Oct 10).

Hospital caterers claim that there has been a shift in attitudes since nurse education moved into universities. Nurses now believe that serving meals and helping patients to eat is beneath them.

“Florence Nightingale was happy to wash and feed patients and make them feel comfortable, but today’s nurses think that because they have a degree they do not have to do the basics,” says one manager in Dorset, who heard a senior nurse say: “I am paid too much to feed patients.”

“Nurses believe serving meals is not part of their job – it is beneath them,” adds a Berkshire-based caterer.

The attitudes were revealed in a survey carried about by the Hospital Caterers Association. Neil Watson-Jones, chair of the association, says: “I would like to see a return to basics. Care is about more than a clinical intervention. It is also about making the patient journey more comfortable.”

Peter Carter, the Royal College of Nursing general secretary, agrees that the switch from on-the-job training to classroom tuition may have gone too far.

“The lurch from the apprenticeship model to the academic model was far too great,” he says. “Nursing is the sort of occupation that primarily you have to learn in the work setting. There is no substitute for experiencing hands-on patient care.”

There is also a concern that a softly-softly culture has developed in the NHS, putting staff before patients. Modern matrons who need to discipline nurses have to talk to them in a nice, soft voice, says Harriet Sergeant, a fellow of the Centre for Policy Studies, they can’t just bawl out sub-standard nurses.

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