A degree of success? Messages from the new social work degree in England for nurse education

Moriarty, Jo; Manthorpe, Jill; Stevens, Martin; Hussein, Shereen; MacIntyre, Gillian; Orme, Joan; Green Lister, Pam; Sharpe, Endellion; Crisp, Beth

doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2009.10.003

« Previous Next »Nurse Education Today
Volume 30, Issue 5 , Pages 443-447, July 2010

A degree of success? Messages from the new social work degree in England for nurse education

Jo Moriarty
- Social Care Workforce Research Unit, King’s College London, Melbourne House, 5th Floor, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, UK
Jill Manthorpe
- Social Care Workforce Research Unit, King’s College London, Melbourne House, 5th Floor, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, UK
- Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 020 7848 1683/1782; fax: +44 020 7848 1866.
Martin Stevens
- Social Care Workforce Research Unit, King’s College London, Melbourne House, 5th Floor, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, UK
Shereen Hussein
- Social Care Workforce Research Unit, King’s College London, Melbourne House, 5th Floor, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, UK
Gillian MacIntyre
- Glasgow School of Social Work, Jordanhill Campus, Sir Henry Wood Building, Glasgow G13 1PP, UK
Joan Orme
- Glasgow School of Social Work, Jordanhill Campus, Sir Henry Wood Building, Glasgow G13 1PP, UK
Pam Green Lister
- Glasgow School of Social Work, Jordanhill Campus, Sir Henry Wood Building, Glasgow G13 1PP, UK
Endellion Sharpe
- Sharpe Research, 7 Broad Hinton Road, London SW4 0LU, UK
Beth Crisp
- Department of Social Work, Deakin University, Geelong, Victoria 3217, Australia

Accepted 1 October 2009. published online 04 November 2009.

Summary

In September 2008 the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) approved plans to change pre-registration nursing education in England to an all-graduate qualification in 2015. In 2001 the Department of Health announced a similar decision for social work qualifying education and the first graduate-only qualifying programmes began in 2003–2004. This article presents findings from a national in-depth evaluation of the social work degree in England and describes ways in which efforts have been made to improve the quality of social workers, raise the status of the profession and link practice and theory as part of the transformation to a degree level qualification. Messages for nurse educators are drawn in the light of the professions’ commonalities.

Keywords: Social work education, Degree qualification, Evaluation, Policy