@sabrowes.bsky.social
@RCN.org.uk North West Regional Director MSc, RN, SCPHN Cert. Public Mental Health (RCPsych) 🧪 FRSPH 👥 PCE Psychotherapy @spti-nottm.bsky.social Stumbling into middle age, occasionally fall over. Views are personal, not representative. 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ (He/Him)
🤢 🤮 that is all.
01.03.2026 13:33 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
www.register.service.csd.fcdo.gov.uk/united-arab-...
28.02.2026 21:40 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Headline from the FT in 2023: Victorian sewers not to blame for England's pollution, research shows Less than 12 per cent of the sewage network in England and Wales was built in the 19th century,
Well, #DirtyBusiness is an eye-opener even for those of us that have followed the sewage dumping scandal with interest. This was the biggest lie I didn’t know was a lie: “We’ve inherited a crumbling Victorian system and it’s too expensive to repair”.
27.02.2026 07:33 — 👍 8 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
No joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientist—because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition.
Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Mental health nursing sits at the intersection of care, law, ethics and risk.
Done well, it protects rights, promotes recovery and safeguards communities.
Today is a moment to recognise that clearly and without cliché.
#MentalHealthNursing #EvidenceBasedPractice #SafetyCriticalCare
If we are serious about mental health care in 2026, we must be serious about:
• safe staffing and skill mix
• robust clinical supervision
• continuing professional development
• leadership that understands relational practice
• systems that support thoughtful, person-centred decision-making
Mental health nurses are not heroes.
They are highly skilled professionals operating in complex and sometimes high-stakes environments.
We should talk about the work in those terms.
Mental Health Nurses’ Day was established by the Royal College of Nursing through the RCN Mental Health Forum.
It is not simply about recognition.
It is about acknowledging complexity and accountability.
www.rcn.org.uk/Get-Involved...
This balancing act is supervised, refined and grounded in research and professional standards.
It draws on psychological theory, neuroscience, trauma-informed approaches and structured risk management.
It is neither soft nor simplistic.
Nurses often work within systems that can feel restrictive, procedural, authoritative or reactive.
Yet within those constraints, they create space for humanity, relational depth and thoughtful care.
That is professional skill, not sentiment.
Every day, mental health nurses navigate:
• empathy and professional boundaries
• hope and realism
• autonomy and restriction
• therapeutic alliance and safety
• anticipation of risk and proportional response
This balance is deliberate and learned.
Mental health nursing is safety-critical practice.
It is evidence-based. It requires:
• complex assessment
• formulation
• risk analysis
• legal literacy
• pharmacological knowledge
• therapeutic skill
This is clinical judgement exercised where decisions can have profound consequences.
🧵 Mental Health Nurses’ Day 2026.
Mental health nursing is often described in emotive language: compassion, resilience, care.
Those things matter.
But what often gets missed is the sophistication of the work.
#MentalHealthNursesDay
#NurseSky #TherapistSky
For me, the Royal Charter is not nostalgia.
It is a living constitutional framework.
It affirms that nursing has its own authority and its own responsibility to the public.
The Charter also formalises something distinctive about the RCN:
Professional authority and workforce advocacy sit side by side.
That is not a contradiction.
You cannot deliver safe care in unsafe systems.
Inclusion and excellence are not competing values.
They must be held together.
A profession that has grown by widening participation while strengthening accountability.
What strikes me most is how the Charter tells a story of expansion and inclusion.
Membership widened to include:
• Male nurses
• Students
• Enrolled nurses
• Healthcare assistants
Each amendment reflects a profession evolving without abandoning standards.
In 2026, we are leading through workforce pressure, industrial tension, system reform and public scrutiny.
Leadership cannot rest on personality or platform.
It must be grounded in legitimacy, standards and public purpose.
The Charter provides that anchor.
The Charter is the constitutional foundation of the RCN.
It formally recognises nursing as equal among the royal health colleges.
It defines our purpose, governance and authority.
It establishes us as both a professional body and a special register trade union.
That dual identity really matters.
#NurseSky
This morning I stood in front of the Royal Charter of @rcn.org.uk
Granted in 1928. “Royal” added in 1939. Amended across decades as nursing has evolved.
It would be easy to see it as ceremonial. It isn’t. 🧵
www.rcn.org.uk/news-and-eve...
#NuseSky
“Alongside this work, we will continue to support every member working in the NHS and HSC across the UK with guidance to access job evaluation as new nursing role profiles are implemented across all roles.”
How we show up gives others permission to show up too.
Maybe professional maturity isn’t about becoming more polished.
Maybe it’s about becoming more whole.
#NurseSky #TherapistSky
People don’t connect with perfection.
They connect with coherence.
Leaders who can be:
Strategic and human
Boundaried and compassionate
Confident and reflective
That’s what builds trust.
Over time, the work isn’t about getting rid of those parts.
It’s about integration rather than compartmentalisation.
Not: “I mustn’t show that side of me.”
But: “How do all these parts of me belong here?”
Some parts feel easy to show at work.
Others stay hidden — not because they’re wrong, but because somewhere along the way we learned it wasn’t always safe to show them.
Most of us are made up of parts.
The competent one
The caring one
The strategic one
The tired one
The hopeful one
The one quietly holding a lot together
All of them real. All of them us.
In healthcare and in leadership especially, we often feel pressure to present a single version of self:
Calm.
Capable.
Certain.
In control.
But that’s not actually how humans are built.
How we see ourselves
How we think others see us
How we want to be seen
They’re rarely the same picture. 🧵
#NurseSky #TherapistSky
Authentic nurse leadership: what is it and how do I practise it?
My article in @nursingstandard.bsky.social
rcni.com/nursing-stan...
#NuseSky
Please find out more about the work of the RCN’s Institute of Nursing Excellence by reading this blog & checking out our report on 2025 @rcn.org.uk
26.01.2026 11:27 — 👍 3 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0