Nursing reform: after the National Assembly, the Senate adopts the bill which confers new missions on the profession

On Monday, May 5, the Senate expressed its support for a redefinition of the missions of the nursing profession and for recognition of the work of these health professionals, by adopting the text of a reform long awaited by the sector.

Already approved in March by the National Assembly , the bill proposed by deputies Nicole Dubré-Chirat (Renaissance) and Frédéric Valletoux (Horizons) was unanimously supported by the upper house, with some modifications. Deputies and senators will now have to agree on their visions during a joint committee, the date of which remains to be set, the last step before the final adoption of this consensual text of law.

Health Minister Yannick Neuder welcomed the text, which he said would give "a new direction" to the profession and provide "new perspectives" to the country's approximately 640,000 nurses.

The proposed law redefines the roles of nurses, which have been governed since 2004 by a decree deemed obsolete because their profession has become significantly more diverse in recent years in the face of medical desertification.

It also enshrines in law the notions of "nursing consultation" and "nursing diagnosis" , and gives nurses the power to prescribe certain medications or examinations listed by decree, despite criticism from doctors' unions. They are concerned about a law that seeks to respond, in a roundabout way, to the lack of doctors in the territories, a sensitive subject currently being debated in the Assembly as part of another cross-party bill.

But "there is no question of opening a front with doctors," Mr. Neuder tried to reassure. "The nurse's missions are always intended to be carried out in cooperation and complementarity" with doctors, he insisted.

With this aim of appeasement in mind, the senators included in the law that nurses worked in "coordination" with other health professionals, preferring this term to that of "complementarity" chosen by the deputies.

They also elevated the body of nurses in national education and higher education to the rank of "independent nursing specialty" , to recognize the "pivotal role" of these professionals in the education and health system.