Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust

Never has the hon. Lady spoken with so much support from this side of the House—I do not wish to destroy her credibility with her own party! She points to something that the public feel very strongly about and that is an issue in some parts of the nursing profession. We looked carefully at whether we should remove the requirement for graduate qualifications and decided that nurses are now asked to do a great deal more than they were 20, 30 or 40 years ago in, for example, giving people medication and the clinical procedures they are asked to be involved in. We need to make sure that there is the right culture in nursing. That is why I proposed—it was very controversial at the time, although I think it has been quite broadly accepted now—that before becoming a nurse people should spend some time, potentially up to a year, on the front line as a health care assistant to make sure that those going into nursing had the right values and recognised that giving this personal care is a fundamental part of what being a nurse should always be about.