Gender balance of nurses in UK countries
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10 Nursing Times March 2019 / Vol 115 Issue 3 www.nursingtimes.net the world, and has a big following on Twitter. Since qualifying, Mr Gooding has become part of the West Midlands Region board at the Royal College of Nursing to help better understand policy and influence. He has also worked alongside chief nursing officer Dr Ruth May to deliver gender-neutral uniforms to schoolchildren. Mr Gooding told Nursing Times about challenges he has faced in the workplace, simply because he is a man: “I walked onto a general paediatric ward in London Dann Gooding is a paediatric intensive care nurse in Birmingham, having qualified in October last year. He started his career in healthcare around the age of 20, when he began doing some care work in the community. Following that, he went into older people’s care at a hospital in Devon, before beginning his paediatric nurse training in London. As a student nurse he created The Student Nurse Project. The online support community works to empower students and newly qualified nurses from around Iain Wheatley, a nurse consultant in acute and respiratory care at Frimley Park Hospital, said he “always wanted to be a nurse”. As a child, he was a member of Scouts and St John Ambulance, where he said he was always “very interested in looking after people”. “I was more interested in the emergency side of it – that’s what probably drove me to look at nursing,” he added. When Mr Wheatley was near to finishing school, it was suggested to him that he join the army and do his nursing there – so that’s what he did. During his nursing career, he has taken on a plethora of roles – including posts in intensive care, critical outreach, research and on a medical high-dependency unit – and is currently a consultant nurse, running the respiratory service at the hospital in Surrey. When asked why he thought there were fewer men in the profession, Mr Wheatley said: “I think the stereotype that nursing is a female- dominated role is still quite predominant.” He added: “It’s probably not something that directly appeals to youngsters coming up from schools into college, who are thinking about what careers they want to do.” He explained that to help recruit more men into nursing, he would suggest promoting male ambassadors as leaders, as well as using and publicising men in recruitment campaigns. and a senior nurse looked at me and said, and I quote, ‘A male nurse? Are you meant to be here?’. Later, I was using a stethoscope and a nurse asked me if I was a ‘wannabe doctor’.” He said he thought these kinds of misconceptions of male nurses were prevalent – especially for those who work with children. Gender balance of nurses in UK countries Nursing News Focus Case study Dann Gooding: ‘Are you a wannabe doctor?’ Case study Iain Wheatley: ‘I was told to join the army to do nursing’ 88.7% 89.4% 90.3% 93.4% 11.3% 6.6% 9.7% 10.6% England Wales Ireland Scotland Northern Male nurses Female nurses
Transcript of Gender balance of nurses in UK countries
10Nursing Times March 2019 / Vol 115 Issue 3 www.nursingtimes.net
the world, and has a big following on Twitter.
Since qualifying, Mr Gooding has become part of the West Midlands Region board at the Royal College of Nursing to help better understand policy and influence. He has also worked alongside chief nursing officer Dr Ruth May to deliver gender-neutral uniforms to schoolchildren.
Mr Gooding told Nursing Times about challenges he has faced in the workplace, simply because he is a man: “I walked onto a general paediatric ward in London
Dann Gooding is a paediatric intensive care nurse in Birmingham, having qualified in October last year.
He started his career in healthcare around the age of 20, when he began doing some care work in the community. Following that, he went into older people’s care at a hospital in Devon, before beginning his paediatric nurse training in London.
As a student nurse he created The Student Nurse Project. The online support community works to empower students and newly qualified nurses from around
Iain Wheatley, a nurse consultant in acute and respiratory care at Frimley Park Hospital, said he “always wanted to be a nurse”.
As a child, he was a member of Scouts and St John Ambulance, where he said he was always “very interested in looking after people”.
“I was more interested in the emergency side of it – that’s what probably drove me to look at nursing,” he added.
When Mr Wheatley was near to finishing school, it was suggested to him that he join the army and do his nursing there – so that’s what he did.
During his nursing career, he has taken on a plethora of roles – including posts in intensive care, critical outreach, research and on a medical high-dependency unit – and is currently a consultant nurse, running the respiratory service at the hospital in Surrey.
When asked why he thought there were fewer men in the profession, Mr Wheatley said: “I think the stereotype that nursing is a female-dominated role is still quite predominant.”
He added: “It’s probably not something that directly appeals to youngsters coming up from schools into college, who are thinking about what careers they want to do.”
He explained that to help recruit more men into nursing, he would suggest promoting male ambassadors as leaders, as well as using and publicising men in recruitment campaigns.
and a senior nurse looked at me and said, and I quote, ‘A male nurse? Are you meant to be here?’. Later, I was using a stethoscope and a nurse asked me if I was a ‘wannabe doctor’.”
He said he thought these kinds of misconceptions of male nurses were prevalent – especially for those who work with children.
Gender balance of nurses in UK countries
Nursing NewsFocus
Case study
Dann Gooding: ‘Are you a wannabe doctor?’
Case study
Iain Wheatley: ‘I was told to join the army to do nursing’
88.7%
89.4%
90.3%
93.4%
11.3%
6.6%
9.7%
10.6%
England
Wales
Ireland
Scotland
Northern
Male nursesFemale nurses
11Nursing Times March 2019 / Vol 115 Issue 3 www.nursingtimes.net
When the war ended, many male nurses opted to try to take up nursing jobs as they returned to civilian life. Due to a nursing shortage at the time, the government encouraged the recruitment of men into both mental and general nursing aspects of the profession.
It was around about this time, in 1947, that the sex segregation of nurse registries came to an end, with men being allowed education and employment equity by the 1960s. Furthermore, in 1960, men were also allowed to become members of the RCN.
Also back in 1947, a trial was conducted with four men selected to be trained as district nurses. They nursed only male patients and did not wear a uniform, changing into a white jacket when in the patient’s home (pictured, above).
By 1955, following a gradual increase, men represented 10% of NHS nurses, but this has only reached around 11% by 2015 – and still hovers around these levels today, with men more heavily represented in mental health and learning disabilities nursing.
training and diplomas as their female equivalents, they were known as “orderlies” and were paid about half of what women were. In 1919, the Nurse Registration Act was passed, which saw legal recognition granted to nurses – although Mr Ross highlighted men were put on a separate register to women.
As well as their association with the military, nurses who were male were often seen working in mental health hospitals, highlights a 2016 RCN document, The Voice of Nursing. It said men received little training at these hospitals, which meant that male nurses were perceived as less qualifi ed and of a lower status than female nurses. It said this created a gender stereotype in which men worked in mental health nursing and women worked in general nursing.
However, the segregation between male and female nurses changed during World War II when they were brought together by the armed forces and worked together successfully, noted the RCN paper.
A history of men in nursingEXCLUSIVE Megan [email protected]
Historically, nursing has not always been a predominately female profession. Men mostly made up the numbers of what nursing was in the time before Florence Nightingale.
That all changed with her perception of nursing as a female-only career, according to David Ross from Liverpool John Moores University, in the journal Links to Health and Social Care. Some scholars are now also wondering whether her apparent assertion that “every woman is a nurse by nature” could have a part to play in why there are fewer men in nursing today.
Dr Heather Whitford, from the University of Dundee, and Dr James Taylor, from the University of the West of Scotland, said last year that perhaps Florence Nightingale’s declarations that nursing comes naturally to women, has had a “long-term unintended consequence”.
Despite the current level of men in nursing being relatively low, they stated in an article for the Royal College of Nursing that this was not always so. “A millennia ago it was the norm for men, albeit under monastic orders or in a military context, to provide care for the poor, sick or injured,” they said.
According to Mr Ross, the fi rst nursing school in the world included men only and started as far back as 250 BC in India. Male nurses cared for troops during the Crusades in the 11th century and by 1870 it was still men that “staffed fi eld hospitals” in the Franco-Prussian War, he noted.
During World War I male nurses served on the frontline, helping the injured. But, though holding the same
“The issue is, we haven’t raised the profi le of
nursing as a profession for all genders”Professor Mark Radford, director of nursing (improvement), NHS Improvement
“If we help people to understand that there are
two sides to our story, then it will be more appealing to everybody”Professor Alison Leary, professor of healthcare and workforce modelling, London South Bank University
“We want to work with primary school kids so they
start considering nursing – it’s not just a female profession”Dr Ruth May, chief nursing offi cer for England
“It’s just not seen as a man’s job and, especially for
boys growing up, it’s not seen as a career choice”Rachael McIlroy, senior research lead in employment relations, Royal College of Nursing
“The derivative of the word comes from to nurse a baby, so
it’s even in the language”Craig Davidson, student nurse, Glasgow Caledonian University
“We’re challenging the thought process in
children who say, ‘I didn’t know you could be a nurse as a man’”David Gwinnell, founder, Men Into Nursing Together
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‘I could see nursing as a career option at an early age – not all boys can’ David Foster, p13
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March 2019 Vol 115 Issue 3 nursingtimes.net £11.99
Your essential round-up of the latest headline nursing news p12-13
Interview: England’snew chief nursepledges to boostpride in nursing p6
Clinical How to manage workplace confl ict p25
Clinical Care in non-traumatic spinal cord injury p33
New clinical series A guide to nuclear medicine p54
Men in nursingDo we need a gender-balanced profession? p8-11
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