Forcing trainee nurses to spend a year as a healthcare assistant or support worker before they can qualify as a nurse won’t increase the levels of compassion of those entering the profession, says a director of Mayday Healthcare.

The new policy was announced by health secretary Jeremy Hunt earlier this week as an attempt to improve compassion in the NHS, amid claims that many trainee nurses educated to degree-level consider themselves ‘too posh to wash’.

The health secretary’s announcement is very much in line with the Department of Health's commitment to values-based recruitment following the recent publication of the government’s initial response to the report of The Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry. 

Charles Safapour, director of Mayday Healthcare, tells Recruiter he doesn’t think the policy will make any difference to the level of compassion of those entering the profession. “People are born to care and to follow the profession as a nurse, and I don’t think that will change,” he says

However, Safapour tells Recruiter that spending a year as a health assistant or support worker will lead to nurses “with better people skills and better understanding of the caring aspects of the job” and this will lead to better patient care.

Following the health secretary’s announcement, the Royal College of Nursing raised concerns when in a statement its chief executive officer Dr Peter Carter asked: “How will we ensure that the supply of nurses does not become restricted?”

Jason Kukard, team manager at nursing agency Nursing 2000, says that the effect is likely to vary depending on location. In London he predicts the effect will be muted as 85% of nurses on the firm’s books come from abroad and are already qualified. However, outside London, Kukard says the new policy “is definitely going to impact the interest in registering as a nurse”. 

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