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I think there is, also, another very strong reason for nurses to be developed in their leadership abilities - a reason that I believe will be eroded with the notion that nurse training should become solely degree based - namely the role of the nurse in focusing on the wellbeing of the whole person/patient whilst others are engaged in the appropriate focused interventions to restore the patient back to his/her normal level of independent life. This pivotal role of the nurse seems to be fundamental to high quality and standards of health care as a whole, and places the nurse in the leadership position with respect to the wellbeing of the whole individual regardless of the specialist interventions that might arise. The level to which nurses specialise seems, to me at least, to take nurses away from this generalist, but vital, role and places them alongside other professional groups offering specific forms of intervention, thereby extracting them from the leadership role over the wellbeing of the individual as a whole. I don't myself subscribe to the primus inter pares form of leadership where all participants are equal but one is more equal than another - which would occur if nurses abdicate their generalist role for being one of a team of specialists. There needs to be someone focusing solely on the patient as a whole person.
Derek Mowbray, from Linkedin