Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 23 March 2004
418 Mr. Ring asked the Minister for Health and Children if there are plans in place to introduce a course for persons who have qualified in psychiatric nursing to further study in general nursing; if so, when this course will be available; and the centres in which this course will be available. [9210/04]
View answerI presume the Deputy is referring to the postgraduate general nursing course which was offered to registered psychiatric nurses, RPN, and registered mental handicap nurses, RMHN, who wished to train as general nurses.
A number of significant measures have been introduced to increase the supply of nurses to the Irish public health system in recent years. In order to provide more training places the schools of nursing at St. Michael's Hospital, Dún Laoghaire, and Tralee General Hospital, which had previously offered the postgraduate general nursing course were redesignated as pre-registration schools of nursing.
A significant development in nursing education was the commencement of the new four-year undergraduate nursing degree programme in thirteen higher education institutes in autumn 2002, with an approved annual intake of 1,640. The Government has approved capital investment in excess of €240 million to ensure the provision of purpose-built facilities for nursing students, with state-of-the-art clinical skills and human science laboratories. In addition, when the programme has a full cohort of students in 2006, the total annual revenue cost will be in excess of €90 million.
The number of training places has increased by 70% across the three disciplines of general, psychiatric and mental handicap nursing since 1998 as follows:
|
Discipline |
1998 |
2004 |
|
General Nursing |
759 |
1057 |
|
Psychiatric Nursing |
92 |
343 |
|
Mental Handicap Nursing |
117 |
240 |
The number of training places was increased in direct response to the identified needs of the services involved and is a key element of my overall strategy for ensuring that sufficient home-trained nurses are produced for our health services into the future.
As applications for the general nursing degree programme continue to greatly exceed the number of places available on the programme, I do not see the need at present for a postgraduate general nursing course. It is important to bear in mind that such a course would be primarily designed to cater for practising registered psychiatric and mental handicap nurses wishing to work as general nurses and, as such, would have the effect of withdrawing nurses from the mental health and intellectual disability services. The pre-registration nursing degree programmes, on the other hand, have the effect of attracting new entrants to the health service. I will keep the situation under review in the light of service requirements.
