A Glossary of terms

Seaneen writer of http://thesecretlifeofamanicdepressive.wordpress.com/ wants to become a mental health nurse or “Lunatic attendant” as we used to be called. If she does she may find the following useful. It’s a glossary of terms. As we are all well aware in these politically correct times it is increasingly important to use the correct terminology and equally important to avoid the wrong terms. So to help Seaneen and all the other proto mental nurses I give you an indispensable guide to the terms and terminology currently in use in the field of mental health care. I am still looking for suitable definitions for “inappropriate” and “unprofessional” so if any one can help me out on these or any others, then comments please.

Glossary of terms

A
Agenda – describes any collection of policies: ‘equality agenda’ for instance, which invariably need to be ‘taken forward’.
Assertive outreach – The process of actively soliciting trade for social workers and nurses. Generally employed when ‘customers’ fail to show required enthusiasm for services on offer.

B
Beacon of excellence – archaism: any organ of state that achieved – or ‘delivered’ – what it was supposed to.
Best practice – normally ‘established’ when a nurse academic wants to saddle a process with more complexity than is warranted. Replaces ‘working it out for yourself’.
Bench Marking – (management). Absolutely no idea.

C

Care Plan – (nursing), A magical talisman (see Alistair Crowley) to will into existence any action that a half competent nurse would do anyway.
Class – grouping people by the contents of their wallet rather than, say, how they think, feel or behave as individuals.
Consultant – (medical) Gives policy to God usually to be found on the golf course Friday afternoons.
Consultant Nurse – (nursing) see Nurse Consultant
Consultation – a formal system for ignoring public views while patronising them at the same time .i.e. “Listening to Patients” A service user survey.
Community leader – someone plucked from obscurity to represent ‘the views of the community’ for the purposes of ‘consultation’. NB never elected to this position.
CMHT (Community Mental Health Care) – Group of well meaning amateurs charged with looking after the psychiatric welfare of patients. (See MDT)
Crisis Team – (nursing) Sometimes called a “CATT” team for no adequately explained reason they are neither a team nor do they respond in the case of a genuine crisis. Crisis team members can usually be identified as the ones moving away from a problem. Often Nurse lead.
Critique – (academia) ‘. When a nurse academic alleges that someone’s writing is ‘riddled with factual inaccuracies’ then mysteriously fails to identify any.

D

Delivery – as in “delivered against targets”. Means ‘achieve’.
Disproportionate – (foreign affairs): Describes any act by others.
De-legitimise – (nursing/social work) what we do if we suggest that a favoured client group may contain members who are not wholly beyond criticism as individuals.
Delinquents – no such thing. Only people suffering from ‘root causes’ and ‘legitimate grievances’
Diversity – creating a workforce based on how people look rather than on their skills or aptitude
Duty Worker – Usually the least experienced most under qualified member of the team who has been asked to make life or death decisions regarding patient care usually by telephone without ever seeing the patient. (See CMHT, best practice, quality, BUPA, NHS targets etc)

E

Equal – as in ‘opportunities’: describes the desire to have a workforce resemble the population it comes from, rather than matched in expertise to the task in hand. See ‘diversity’.
Egalitarian – “if I can’t have one, then neither can you”. Shared misery much better than unevenly scattered joy.
Evidenced based – (nursing) Usually the opposite of common sense it is used to justify any action no ,matter how stupid because it is based on any old spurious piece of evidence dreamt up by a nurse theorist. (See progressive)

F
Fascism/Nazism – apparently the ‘opposite’ of Socialism – despite sharing party members, ideology and – in National Socialism – the name.

G

Gender issues – grouping people by their sex rather than how they think, feel or behave as individuals.
‘Green’ issues – “if we can’t control the means of production then we’ll close it down”.
God – not at home, presumed missing.

H

Hate-crime – same as ‘normal’ crime as far as victims are concerned – but much more distressing for Guardian reading Social worker types.
Hate-speech – “shut up!”.
HCA (Health Care Assistant) – (nursing), as brown was the new black and 50 is the new 40 now HCA’s are the new nurses
Health professional – Well meaning amateur (see duty worker)
House Officer – (medical) Un -housetrained Doctor who makes a fool of him/ herself by pissing on the carpet.
Human rights – using the legal system to pursue political ends.

I

Inclusive – (nurse education) Means ‘dropping the entry standards until anyone can get in’.
Impartial – media, the balance achieved by attacking the Opposition for being Conservative and attacking the Government for being insufficiently left wing
In partnership with… – (NHS policy): This way, none of us get the blame when it all goes horribly wrong.
Inappropriate – Means “I don’t like this” – no explanation why must ever be given.
Intolerance – Intolerance can only committed against certain defined groups of people. These do not include the white middle classes, or those who live in the countryside.
Institutional racism – ‘racism’ in a workforce that is achieved unknowingly and in ways that cannot be specifically defined.
Issues around… – Means “I may be out of my depth here.”

J
Justice – (Governmen)t: as in ‘social justice’. Means taking money earned by the general public to give to particular groups that Guardian reading social worker types approve of. Replaces market economics.

K
Key – (NHS policy/ Academia): most things are ‘key’, in particular: drivers, learning objectives/ outcomes, and health care outcomes. In nurse education, all ‘stages’ are ‘key’.

L
Liaise – the day-to-day business of a Nurse consultant. Replaces ‘work’.
Learning Objective/ Outcome – Means “lessons learnt” or not as the case may be.

M
Management Wonk – See policy wonk
Multi-cultural – All culture is valid – unless Western. Usually to be ‘celebrated’ and always found to be ‘vibrant’. See ‘diversity’.
MDT (Multidisciplinary Care Team) – All teams are multidisciplinary but usually consist of the duty worker and a secretary.

N
Nurse- see HCA’s
Nurse Consultants – (nursing) See Consultant nurse.
Nurse Led – (nursing) We can’t afford a Doctor.
Nurse Theorists (Peplau, Roper, Tierney, Logan et al) – (academia), Nurse academics whose theories cannot be disproved by observation, experience or factual evidence. See ‘religion’ and ‘post-modernism’.
Nursing Theory – (nursing). An inarticulate, meaningless jumble of ideas cobbled together from any source (except medicine). Generally not worth the paper it is written on.
NHS (National Health Service) – What you get if you can’t afford BUPA

O
Organised labour – what New/Old Labour used to be interested in.

P
Patient centred – (nurse education): “we can’t be bothered to look after them; so perhaps they’ll do it themselves”.
Post-modern – (modern French ‘philosophy): literature claiming that no account of events can be trusted. ‘Texts’ must be ‘deconstructed’ for their hidden meanings – except those by post-modernists, to be taken at face value. (See nursing theory, religion)
Procedure – (management) see policy
Progressive – describes ideas generally thought up around 40 years ago – that still don’t work.
Policy – (management), everything you didn’t need to know about anything but could never previously be bothered to ask. See procedure
Policy Wonk – (management) person of diminished stature who spends all of their time chained to a desk in a windowless basement room in Trust headquarters (aka Gnome central) denied food and water, regularly abused and forced to churn out endless policies on everything from, “How to dispose of rubber gloves” to “How to find your nipples without using a Sat Nav”. (See management wonk)

Q
Quality- (NHS policy) opposite of what it usually means

R
Registrar – (medical). Fully house trained doctor (the one who does all the work).
Relevant – (nurse education): something badly written, with no relevant references whatsoever.
Religion – An irrational, dangerous belief that material things may not be the principal motive behind human behaviour.
RCN – (Royal College of Nursing)-. All policies have to be “in line” with “best practice” as defined by the RCN
Root causes – (academia, NHS policy): Usually need to be ‘examined’. Belief in ‘root causes’ reflects a dogged nurse academic’s habit of trying to see “issues” through the prism of ‘nursing theory”.

S
Secretary of State for Health – (government). The poor sap who has to explain why despite being hosed down with billions of our tax pounds, the socialised system of health care we have in this country is still not fit for purpose. (aka Lying mendacious bastard)
Senior House Officers – (medical) Semi House trained Doctor.
Skills-based – (nurse education): teach student nurses all about nursing theory or something else they don’t actually need to know anything about while ignoring anything practical that they might actually find useful.
Social exclusion – Where bad people, behaving badly, somehow became our fault.
Social Worker – See God
Stereotype – any attempt to describe the general characteristics of a group favoured by Guardian reading social worker types.
Stigmatise – what we do to anti-social people if we ask them to stop.
Subsidised art – art no one would buy.
Subsidised health care – health care no one would buy.

T
Take forward – use instead of ‘do’.
Targets – Arbitrary set of meaningless requirements set by Management wonks (see policy wonks) to be “delivered” on time and under budget. (See bench marking).
Transgressive – A term of approval for anything ‘challenging established values’ – but generally puerile, annoying and dumb.

U
Unilateral – media, used to describe any act by any state in furtherance of its national interest.
Unprofessional – (nursing) The most heinous crime for any “health professional” on a par with buggering the pope if you are Catholic

V
Victim – See ‘gender issues’, ‘race issues’ and ‘social exclusion’.

W
Workers – A notional ‘class’ of people that New/Old Labour once claimed to represent. Now replaced by college lecturers, human rights lawyers, pressure group employees, civil servants with ‘liaise’ in their job title Nurse consultants, or any one you would probably not want over for supper.
Working Party- (NHS policy) – the repository of all moral authority whose words and motives may never be questioned.