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  • 2020-02-05 (xsd:date)
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  • The Royal College of Nursing hasn’t told nurses to call women by gender-neutral terms (en)
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  • The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has told nurses not to use the term ladies or lady. The RCN internal style guide recommended using women or woman instead of ladies or lady in written documentation. This was not guidance to nurses on how to speak to patients. Nurses have been told not to call female patients ladies and to use gender-neutral language in political correctness gone mad. The Sun, 2 February 2020 ...gendered terms like chairman are banned – as is lady. Daily Mirror, 1 February 2020 Over the weekend, several newspapers reported on style guidance from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), which says: Ensure that your language is gender neutral, for example: chair not chairman or chairperson; humankind not mankind; staffed not manned. Use woman or women not lady or ladies. The Sun and the Daily Mirror reported that nurses have been told not to call female patients ladies. There are two problems with this. Firstly, neither newspaper explained that the RCN recommended using woman or women instead of lady and ladies. While the RCN did recommend using gender-neutral language in its style guide, it did not recommend this approach when describing women, as could be inferred from the reporting. And secondly, the RCN style guide is not a guide to nursing staff on how to speak to patients. It’s an internal style guide for the RCN’s own communications. The RCN told us: This was not guidance for nurses on how to speak to, or about, their patients. Instead it was a guide for staff who work at the RCN on respectful use of language. Nurses are capable of making their own judgements about how they speak to the people they care for. So suggesting that the terms have been banned for use in hospitals, as the Mirror did, or that this is guidance that applies to nurses talking to patients (as both the Mail and the Sun did) is inaccurate. We got in touch to request corrections regarding claims made in The Sun and in The Mirror. The Sun amended the article. The Mirror did not respond. Add your name and join the fight for higher standards. We’ll send our latest fact checks every week to your inbox. Yes, I’ll join the fight for good information (en)
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