Mental health nursing has proved it can roll with the times, claims Jon Allen. But when it comes to the development of new roles, he urges caution and a lot more debate

n the last issue of Mental Health Prac- tice (2003, 7, 4, 8), Tony Warne and Sue McAn- drew raised concerns about the development of the associate mental health practitioner (AMHP) role in mental health care and examined the implications for the future of nursing.I contributed to a debate at last year’s RCN mental health conference on whether mental health nursing has a future. I argued that nursing faced particular challenges because the boundaries that have traditionally separated the professions are increasingly becom- ing blurred.