Care for one, that’s love. Care for hundreds, that’s nursing

Stacey Finlay is the Northern Ireland rep on the BGS Nurses and AHPs Council committee, and an Intermediate Care Sister in the Domnall Intermediate Care Centre. She has a PgDip in advanced nursing practice from Queen's University Belfast, and another PgDip in Care of the Elderly from University of Wales Trinity Saint David. She tweets @staceylou_18

This Nurses Day comes at a sombre time for me, and I find myself reflecting not on my own career, but on the role of other nursing colleagues and generally on the role of the care home nurse.

On 13^th April 2023, my grandfather died suddenly after being newly diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer only a few weeks prior. His health over the past few years had deteriorated and following a stroke, he moved into a nursing home; coincidentally the same nursing home that whilst in primary school I had attended to sing Christmas carols to the residents.

Although being diagnosed with cancer in early March, he was reasonably well and celebrated his 78^th and final birthday with an impromptu birthday party in his room at the end of March. He remained well for a couple of weeks however rapidly deteriorated and passed away in the early hours one Thursday morning. Due to how rapid this deterioration was, his death occurring at that time was not something that as a family we were prepared for, if you can ever truly be prepared for the death of the family patriarch. As a result, none of the family were with him when he died. At least, his biological family were not. But he was not without family; he had his second family of the nursing and care staff in the nursing home who loved and cared for him like one of their own and until he breathed his last breath. That’s what nursing is – to care for and love people when they need it the most, to be their family and their advocate when their biological family cannot be by their side, and it is one of the many things that care home nurses are expert at.

Care home nursing is a specialty that is often looked down upon and criticised, as is geriatric medicine. They are both so-called ‘Cinderella specialties’, that is specialties that are underappreciated, often underfunded, and misunderstood amongst the public and peers. Care home nurses are underestimated and undervalued with the level of expertise, knowledge and ingenuity required for a role that is poorly understood by those who do not work in the specialty or related fields.

Care home nurses have significant autonomy and responsibility as they are often the sole healthcare professional on site and often hold responsibility for staffing and premises alongside maintaining the health and well-being of residents. But they garner little respect from other clinicians not involved in the specialty. The theme of this year’s ‘International Nurses Day’ is ‘Our Nurses, Our Future’ with the aim being that nurses will move from being seen, or rather not, as invisible to invaluable and have a key role in shaping policy for the future of healthcare. Care home nurses and social care nursing generally are invaluable to our society and deserve to be seen as such, rather than looked down upon. They need a seat at the table to shape the future and highlight the diverse nature of the role to encourage respect for care home nurses and recruitment of the next generation of care home nurses.

Care home nurses will keep your family safe and love them like one of their own when you can’t be there. They stand up for us and our families when they need it the most. It’s time that we stand up for them and give them the respect they deserve.

All care home and social care nurses deserve thanks, but on a personal note, thank you to all the nursing and care staff who looked after and loved my grandfather like one of their own in his last years. Thank you for being with him as he took his last breath when I and the rest of our family could not. At the moment, we are in the midst of grief, and I am heartbroken, but it brings immense comfort knowing that although we could not be with him, the second family he had gained in all of you were with him. Thank You.