AS A nurse with a strong academic background, I am deeply disappointed by the decision to make nursing an all-graduate profession from 2013.

The nursing degree course does not increase nurses’ knowledge in any useful way over that of the nursing diploma.

If nursing degree students had a higher level of understanding of human anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry then I would be completely in favour of the degree programme.

However, degree nurses only exceed the level of diploma students in their ability to critically analyse research papers for essays and a dissertation.

When faced with a suffering patient, what use is this?

Furthermore, the transition to an all-degree course could be detrimental to the profession.

Some of the most capable, driven, empathetic nurses that I have met are those who enter the career later in life, after motherhood.

These women have an excess of practical knowledge and life-experience to draw upon and make excellent nurses.

However, they would not be able to become nurses after 2013 as they may not have the entry criteria for the degree and would not be able to survive financially without the bursary for the diploma.

However academically qualified we are, the main focus of any nurse must be on providing basic care, comfort and dignity to patients.

As the nursing profession strives to elevate its position, nurses will shun such important work in favour of the more academic, sophisticated side of nursing. Then who is left to care?

HELEN COWAN, Grove Street, Oxford