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Project 2000 was implemented twenty years ago this year, bringing a revolution in the way nurses are educated. Daniel Allen looks back
SUMMARY
The face of nursing education changed completely two decades ago with the implementation of Project 2000. The apprenticeship approach gave way to proper student status.
Keywords
Project 2000 * UK Central Council for Nursing Midwifery and Health Visiting * Apprenticeship * Higher education
There are probably more apt symbols of pre-Project 2000 nurse training, but for many nurses educated the 'old-fashioned' way, the bedpan, orange and upper outer quadrant of the buttock hold particular significance.
The bedpan represented servitude and 'the vocational role of the nurse' (Bradshaw 200I)1 while the orange, employed to hone injection tech ? ique before spearing real buttocks, symbolised the task-orientated nature of nursing care. Back then, few days in the school of nursing would pass without some procedure or other being explained, demonstrated, practised and, eventually, ritualised.
Then, 20 years ago this year, along came Project 2000, a revolutionary approach to preparing nursing students.
Project 2000 did not erupt overnight. The proposals were agreed by the then nursing regulator - the UK Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting (UKCC) - on April 18 1986. It would be three years before they were implemented, but the proposals marked the end of a slow reform process that had been set in motion many years earlier.
One significant name in this build up to Project 2000 was Asa Briggs. He chaired a committee that, in 1972, recommended significant changes to nurse education, as well as to the RCN and the English National Board. It also looked into and consulted on the future of nurse preparation In the mid-1980s.
Gathering opinion
A UKCC project group had also publisheda number of papers on nurse education before the final Project 2000 report
Margaret Green, then director of education at the RCN and chair of the UKCC project group, recalls the efforts made to hear the views of grass roots nurses on the proposed changes. 'We went round the country with five discussion papers. We went to endless lengths to talk to people and find out what they wanted. I even went to al I fou r countries of the UK...