ABSTRACT
Unqualified support staff have long been the proverbial thorn in the side of those who subscribe to a professional vision of nursing. Despite a deep-rooted desire for an all-qualified work force by certain segments of the occupation, nursing has thus far failed to secure jurisdictional closure (Witz 1988). Owing to demographic and economic pressures (paid) nursing care has always been provided by a mixture of qualified and unqualified staff, and, contrary to much nursing rhetoric, it is students and auxiliaries who have undertaken most of the direct physical tending of patients.
