In the United Kingdom, health and justice services nurses are a diverse group working across a range of contexts and settings such as police custody, sexual assault referral centers, young offenders' institutes, and prisons and probation. Recruitment and retention to the specialist field of health and justice services nursing, specifically prison nursing, is problematic in the United Kingdom. In this article, we consider the background to the current situation in prison nursing and summarize some of the existing literature and research relating to this specialty to raise, for discussion and debate, issues that are pertinent to the concept of professional identity and professionalism. Role definition, resilience and burnout, and education within prison nursing are identified in relation to the development of professional identity. It could be that professional identity is the missing link to recruitment and retention.
In May 1935, the National Council for Women held a conference on health in Sheffield. At the time, concern about rising rates of maternal mortality was at its height nationally. Many of the delegates to the conference commented on the particularly poor situation in Sheffield, which had one of the highest maternal mortality rates (MMR) in the country.' Councillor Asbury, the long-standing Labour Chair of the Council's Health Committee, rose to defend his Council against the charge that not enough was being done to tackle the problem. He agreed that "The one black spot is maternal mortality."2 However, he turned the issue round by explaining that: Unless [we] can make some headway in the direction of reducing the number of sepsis deaths arising from abortion, over which the local authority [has] no control, the maternal mortality rate must inevitably remain high ... Even if it should result in Sheffield being regarded as an abortionist City, we intend to focus public attention on this grave problem and shall continue to do so until this foul thing disappears from our midst.3
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