Bridget Ryan

Working conditions in care homes are ideal for student placements

I agree with Stuart Keeling (career development September 8) that care homes offer tremendous opportunities for nursing students and those thinking of going into nursing and medicine.

NHS whistleblowers are heroes for some and villains for others.

Sir Robert Francis QC, who reported on the Mid Staffs scandal two years ago, is concerned that NHS whistleblowers continue to be vilified for speaking out and raising the alarm about poor care.

Ebola shines a spotlight on the vital role of front line healthcare workers.

Screening arrangements for nurses, doctors and aid workers returning to the UK from west Africa after caring for people with Ebola virus disease will need to be reviewed in the light of Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferkey diagnosed with the disease after arriving back from Sierra Leone. It is sad that it has taken infected healthcare workers such as nurse William Pooley (News September 24, Letters September 24 and October 1) and this Scottish nurse to raise public awareness of Ebola in the UK. The suffering of countless thousands of people in west Africa passes largely unnoticed. According to the World Health Organization, this latest outbreak has infected more than 19,500 people and killed more than 7,500, including 366 of the healthcare workers who have fought to control the epidemic. More than 660 healthcare workers have been infected with Ebola. TIME magazine has named ‘Ebola Fighters’ the 2014 Person of the Year. Its commendation states: ‘The rest of the world can sleep at night because a group of men and women are willing to stand and fight.’ As Margarite Nathe, senior editor at IntraHealth International, has blogged (tinyurl.com/nhfvz9l): ‘If Ebola has done one thing for the good of global health, it’s that it has shone a spotlight on front line health workers and their vital role in disease response and prevention.’

If hospital nurses are to lose weight, the NHS needs to provide more food.

The focus on food in hospitals is invariably on the patients. So it is good to read that NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens is concerned by rising obesity rates and the health of his employees (Analysis August 13).

Piecemeal approach could lead to confusion over industrial action.

Nurses and midwives will stage a four-hour strike as part of the ongoing pay dispute (News November 5). This will take place from 7am to 11am on Monday November 24.

It is okay to cry at work but only when well away from patients.

Shortly before she died aged 96, the American aviator and nurse Dorothy ‘Dot’ Ebersbach gave

Who says going from the wards to the lords is a good thing

2 million (£1.28m) to the fl ight nursing programme at the Frances Payne Bolton school of nursing in Cleveland, Ohio, where she graduated with a nursing degree in 1954. The executors of her estate have now donated another

Hospitals should be paid a premium for delivering care to older people

2.7 million to the programme at the Dorothy Ebersbach Academic Center for Flight Nursing, renamed in her honour. This gift will allow the centre to expand its advanced practice fl ight nurse programme to train nurses in the safe transportation of patients by air to medical facilities. The programme is the only one of its kind based at a nursing school in the United States. Ms Ebersbach was born in Pomeroy, Ohio, the second of two daughters of Charles and Ella, owners of a road construction company. During a family trip to the 1933 Chicago World Fair, she fl ew for the fi rst time in a seaplane with her father. The joy of fl ying never left her. Ms Ebersbach qualifi ed as a pilot in 1939. When the United States entered the second world war, she was accepted into the newly formed Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) to fl y non-combat missions. Following the war, Ms Ebersbach trained as a nurse and worked for the Hillsborough County Health Department in Tampa, Florida. As a school nurse, she worked in several polio campaigns and co-authored a book on immunisation. She retired in 1975. In a ceremony at the US Capitol in 2010, the WASPs were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honour awarded by Congress to civilians.

Members of your readers panel wereasked if nurses are reluctant toexpose colleagues who do not givegood care (reflections June 15): Patients rely on us to stand up andexpose those who deliver poor care

Nursing Standards Peer Pressure campaign aims to boost the number of nurses in the House of Lords. There are currently only four nurses out of a total membership of 788 ( news February 15 ).

Seamless end of life care is everyone's responsibility.

The health service ombudsmans latest report reveals that the NHS in England is failing to meet the most basic standards of care for many older people. Ann Abrahams report should be a wake-up call for nurses.