The Daily View: Nurses' degrees

From 2013, prospective nurses will require a degree. The Times leader column points out that the intentions behind the move may be to allay fears from doctors about the closing of the gap between the roles of doctors and nurses and concludes:

"Very many nurses could benefit from a university education. Degree-level entry to nursing should certainly be available. There is just no need for it to be mandatory."

Raymond Tallis was Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Manchester and a doctor for 35 years. Tallis hopes in the Times that a degree won't create a distance between the nurse and the frightened patient and adds:

"The quest for power and status, then, is more important than the quest for higher nursing standards. That is why the nurses' leaders are so keen on the idea: kudos is their goal."

Also a retired doctor, Theodore Dalrymple says in the Daily Telegraph that the government is holding out the mirage of power and standing to the mass of nurses:

"Focusing on more abstract and theoretical issues, which a degree course, as opposed to vocational training, would require, might diminish the commitment to basic nursing -- a fear captured in the much used phrase: 'too posh to wash'."

• Jean Flanagan | Yorkshire Post | Nurses deserve the best training we can give them - and so do patients
• Ian Birrell | Independent | It is patients who will end up losing out
• Rona Johnson | Daily Mail | You don't learn compassion at university