Nurse education in English universities in a period of change: expectations of nurse academics for the year 2008

In England, the education of nurses in the academic arena has a relatively short history arguably representing recent advancement of the nursing discipline. Until we undertook this study, however, expectations for the next decade were unknown. The current investigation replicates a similar study of Australian nurse academics (Sellers & Deans 1996) which found discrepancies between how nurse academics perceived the future development of the profession, compared to how they actually expected it to develop. In order to provide information concerning the future of nursing education in England and related professional and social factors, a random sample of nurse academics was surveyed. Findings indicate that although advances have been made, there are a number of concerns regarding the development of nursing as a discipline. These include parity of status with other academic areas, resource issues, the workload of nurse academics and the perception that there is lack of cohesiveness amongst nurses as a professional group. Findings in this study closely mirror results in the Australian study indicating similarities in how the nursing profession copes with the transition from a predominantly hospital based education program to a program grounded in academic institutions.