Just a word of caution Bridge.

If you class a nurse by their hands on work, then most nurses are indeed nurses. Including those in charge of wards (known as sisters or equivalent) who are usually band 7 or matrons (or equivalent) on band 8 a, b or c depending on management / workload. Ironically, due to bank and shortage of nurses, most nurses, at the risk of any form of social or family life, work much longer than the 37 hours per week the AFC bands are calculated on.

The catch 22 here is that if numbers increase, overtime falls and the numbers if nurses whose family budgets rely on regular overtime are staggering according to successive polls and surveys by Nursing Times and RCN.

The answer? Dunno. But patient safety alone precluded carrying on as they have to at present. A proper rather than as done at present look at how work is carried out, duties of particular grades and stopping upskilling nurses to be cheap de skilled doctors would be a start.