The Work of the Mental Nurse

The Manchester Regional Hospital Board has done a great and public-spirited service to the profession of mental nursing through fhe publication of this report of a job analysis carried out at their instigation by Mr. H. A. Goddard and his co-workers. The report comprises a detailed survey of the day to day work of the nurses of all grades in two mental deficiency hospitals and one mental hospital, all in the Manchester region. Observation was made of pleven wards in the two mental deficiency hospitals and eight wards *n the mental hospital. The hospitals are admittedly not typical of those throughout the country, in fact the mental hospital which is described as "very old" with some buildings built over 130 years ago and accommodating 2,219 patients, is fortunately a comparatively rare specimen of its kind. Nevertheless the general conclusions and recommendations made by Mr. Goddard are applicable to most of the mental and mental deficiency hospitals ln the country. All three hospitals suffer seriously from a shortage of nursing staff and this is the main reason for this analysis of the nurses' work having been made. The description of the hospitals may be horrifying to those unfamiliar with conditions in some of our older Cental hospitals, but there can be little excuse for permitting some ?f these to persist for very much longer, and if the report does no niore than to stimulate a drastic reorganisation of the older mental hospitals it will have more than justified its publication. Nurses can no longer be expected to work in a ward where there are only two baths for 67 patients or where washing up is done in the sluice, even as a temporary measure. In one female senile and infirm ward there were 134 patients, 52 of whom were bedridden, and 50 out ?f 58 regressed patients were incontinent.