Nursing in the United Kingdom is undergoing massive retrenchment. An increasing number of nurses are unable to obtain employment following qualification and agency nursing and short-term contracts are becoming the norm. Amalgamations of colleges of nursing have resulted in redundancies of nurse teachers and a significant reduction in student nursing places. The profession of nursing in the UK is in a state of crisis from which it may never recover. Nurses have generated and facilitated this situation in their self-interested quest (...) for professional status. Essentially, nurses have turned their backs on many nursing skills and allowed others to take on the role. British nursing may find its survival through its health care assistants. Nurses in other countries should take note and take steps to safeguard the profession on an international level. (shrink)