The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has been urged to issue a statement backing the four fields of nursing.
The RCN Mental Health Forum has called on the college’s governing council to make unquestionable its support for the separate branches and other nursing specialties.
“Comments can be misinterpreted as support for getting rid of specialties”
Helen Rees
The four core fields are adult, children’s, mental health and learning disabilities nursing.
In recent months, the future of mental health nursing has been brought into the spotlight.
Nursing Times reported on comments made by RCN chief Professor Nicola Ranger and others that appeared to question whether it was still right to separate mental and physical health nursing.
These came against a backdrop of concern that the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s Future Nurse standards are leading to mental health nurse education becoming too generic or focused on adult nursing skills.
Helen Rees
Speaking to Nursing Times, Helen Rees, mental health nurse and member of the RCN Mental Health Forum steering committee, said she believed it was not the case that anyone wanted to see the dissolution of mental health nursing as its own field.
However, she added: “We are concerned that without a clear statement supporting the fields of nursing, comments can be misinterpreted as support for getting rid of specialties.
“Particularly when things are being spoken about in terms of physical healthcare for people with mental health needs or mental health needs for people with physical health problems, both of which are significant problems. And the forum are aware of that, as are nurses outside of the forum.
“But sometimes, when that’s been discussed or reported on or talked about, the interpretation is that the solution to that is to get rid of the fields of nursing, and we believe that having a position statement from the RCN will reduce the risk of that.”
The RCN Mental Health Forum submitted an emergency resolution at RCN Congress 2025, which took place last month, calling for the statement.
The resolution read: “That this meeting of congress ask council to work on production of a college position statement protecting nursing specialties.”
While there was no time for a debate, RCN members voted by a show of hands for the resolution to be referred directly to RCN Council.
The RCN confirmed that all resolutions that were passed at RCN Congress 2025 would be sent to RCN Council for consideration for the year ahead.
The resolution came as the RCN is due to embark on a UK-wide review of pre- and post-registration nurse education.
Amid the recent controversies, the college has made a commitment to the RCN Mental Health Forum that it will be involved in this review.
Ms Rees said this commitment was “really positive”.
She said she wanted to see the review dive deep into the issue of the NMC Future Nurse standards and how they were affecting mental health nurse education.
In addition, she said she wanted to see it support “protection and strengthening of the space for psychosocial interventions that are specialist within mental health nursing”.
“Because all nurses need to be able to do psychosocial interventions, but they don’t all need them to the depth that you will need them for working with severe and enduring mental illness,” said Ms Rees.
More on the background to this story
