National and International learning from ‘Playing our Part’: an exercise in consultation and debate with the public and the profession on the work of graduate and registered mental health nurses in the UK

The Foundation of Nursing Studies is a Registered UKCharity holding an international reputation for nursingpractice and organizational development (www.fons.org).In 2016, the Charity was asked to consider lookingmore closely at the work of graduate and regis teredmental health nurses in the UK where a specialistpathway to professional registration as a mental healthnurse still operates.Although we are establishing creativ e mental healthpolicies in the UK, a background exists in which thereis a steady decline in the numbers of qualified mentalhealth nurses in the workforce (a 15% reduction in5 years), poor policy engagement profile amongst theprofession, a potentially disruptive review of profes-sional educational pathways to registration, confusingdescriptions of what menta l health nurses actually do,and a sense from mental health nurses that ‘no oneloves or speaks for us’