Many nurses who are qualified to treat people in hospitals are insulted when people confuse them for being carers. Today if someone says they’re a nurse they could be referring to working in a hospital, perhaps treating children or adults with cancer or other serious illnesses, or they could be feeding the elderly in a residential care home. The term nurse should always be used to describe individuals who are qualified nurses, providing support to doctors, surgeons and other medical professionals. A carer requires no such training, and that’s why they should be called carers. It’s a shame the term ‘nurse’ has been generalised in the UK over the last decade or so, and hopefully more people appreciate they are two completely different things requiring completely different levels of expertise and knowledge.