Are senior nurses on Clinical Commissioning Groups in England inadvertently supporting the devaluation of their profession? : A study of the literature

HT Allan, RLG Dixon, M O,Driscoll, J Savage, Christine Tapson

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Abstract

This paper discusses the role of senior nurses who sit on clinical commissioning groups that now plan and procure most health services in England. These nurses are expected to bring a nursing view to all aspects of clinical commissioning group business (National Health Service England 2014a; Olphert 2014). The role is a senior level appointment and requires experience of strategic commissioning. However little is known about how nurses function in these roles. Following Barrientos’ methodology (1998), published policy and literature were analysed to investigate these roles and NHS England’s claim that nursing can influence and advance a nursing perspective in clinical commissioning groups. Drawing on work by Berg et al (2008, 2014) on ‘new public management’ we discuss how nurses on clinical commissioning groups work at the alignment of the interests of biomedicine and managerialism. We propose that the way this nursing role is being implemented might paradoxically offer further evidence of the devaluing of nursing (Latimer 2014) rather than the emergence of a strong professional nursing voice at the level of strategic commissioning.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)178-187
JournalNursing Inquiry
Volume23
Issue number2
Publication statusPublished - 1 Feb 2016

Keywords

  • Clinical commissioning groups
  • governing body nurses
  • commissioning nurses
  • new public management
  • leadership
  • 6Cs

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