CPHVA backs Teachers’ call for more School Nurses
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Calls by one of the main teaching unions for more school nurses have been backed by the Community Practitioners’ and Health Visitors’ Association (CPHVA) which represents more than half of the UK’s 2,500 school nurse workforce.
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The National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers wants a return of the school nurse so that their members don’t have to undertake "invasive" and "intimate" procedures on pupils.
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The CPHVA’s Professional Officer for School Nursing and Public Health, Pat Jackson said this was an area of growing concern for teachers and called for 500 more school nurses to be employed nationally.
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Ms Jackson said: ‘Health and education authorities must act together over this – and not pass the buck – as they have a shared responsibility for the wellbeing of the nation’s children. At the end of the day, it is the individual child who is important.’
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We must support moves to integrate children with chronic and complex health needs into mainstream school.’
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‘ The school nurse’s role is to ensure individual care plans are drawn up for each pupil and that care assistants are appropriately trained to administer care – but we need more school nurses to do even this.’
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‘Unfortunately, at the end of the day we won’t have a school nurse in every school, but we should aim for there to be one in secondary schools at least. There should be care assistants in schools, not teachers, who can provide the necessary care supervised by trained school nurses who may have responsibility for several schools in the locality.’
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Last year, the CPHVA launched a school nurse national framework document – the first blueprint in a quarter of a century – to improve the health of school children and reverse the sharp decline in school nurse numbers.
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