Ball, E 2011, 'A social purpose model for nursing' , Nursing Forum, 46 (3) , pp. 152-156.

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Abstract

The very current international debate regarding the construction of professional role-identity in nursing involves analysis of context, competency, reflection, and theory; what most of the literature shows is that nursing continues to struggle with inherited moral and behaviourist constructs in which essential is in opposition to essentialist caring values and remains part of a convoluted argument (Goodrick & Reay, 2010). Each of these two types of caring either figure or pre-figure in the ‘future of nursing’, which, in the 21st Century is contained within the market economy of healthcare reforms and international change (Holland, 2008; Ball & Pike 2009; Ball & Regan 2010). Therefore, how nursing’s past is mapped is germane to any current or future understanding of nursing in a multi-disciplinary workforce. The paper provides a historical mapping of the concept of new nursing from when it was utilised in another context nearly eighteen years ago to now in the United Kingdom (UK). The paper includes a critical discussion of nursing’s purposeful future to make the discussion more meaningful from an international perspective. Cartographically linking the past to the present is important, but if there is opportunity to define and identify the profession for a purposeful future, appropriate tools are needed to do so. Therefore, the paper offers a social purpose model in which a Subjective, Objective, and Contextual Ideal of what nursing is today can be explored critically and applied both to the student and mentor’s practice arena.

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