ODPs and the demise of nursing in the UK

As a first-year student Operating Department Practitioner (ODP), I feel compelled to write in reply to comments made in your journal by Professors Linda Shields and Roger Watson about my chosen profession .

I feel that the disparaging remarks made about the way in which ODPs work within the theatre department are unfounded. The article implies that ODPs cannot have the knowledge and education of a perioperative nurse; that only a nurse can provide care and make clinical judgement throughout a patient's perioperative experience. I am currently undertaking a two-year Diploma of Higher Education in Operating Department Practice (it is also worth pointing out that this will soon become a degree level course), and the main focus throughout my study is that of caring for the patient. As a student I am expected to understand physiological signs in my patients to a high level, enabling me to make clinical judgements to aid the continuing homeostasis of the patient.

I would argue that the nursing tasks listed within the article are also carried out by ODPs, with the added tasks of working alongside the anaesthetist when the patient is awake and needing psychological and emotional care. What gives the nursing profession the monopoly on ‘caring’? I would also point out that the AAGBI guidelines for anaesthesia teams (revised 2005) state that ‘Anaesthetists must have dedicated qualified assistance whenever anaesthesia is administered.’ They do not say that this must be a nurse.

I feel that more research into the role and training of ODPs should have been carried out prior to this article being published. By discrediting other professionals, the writers of the article have done little to promote nursing and could cause ill feeling within the multi-professional team working in theatre departments.