Nursing Education – Though it is one of the oldest and most respected positions in the UK, nursing continues to evolve in order to try and increase the quality of service that patients receive, as well as to increase the development of the nurses themselves so that they can both improve in their role as well as gaining more fulfilment from it.
One of the most recent and substantial changes made to how nurses will be educated took place just three years ago: the New Standards for pre-registration nursing education came into force, with over 5,000 individuals across the UK contributing to the new regulations, which were launched in September 2011 in order to provide the foundation for all pre-registration nursing programmes.
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One of the main focuses of the new standard was to increase the range of skills that nurses posses in order to try and address the variety of complex needs that modern patients have. With nurses treating children and adults with both learning disabilities and mental health problems, as well as those who aren’t native to the country, it was felt that their skill base should become wider.
NMC Chief Executive and Registrar, Professor Dickin Weir-Hughes commented at the time that:
“The new standards continue to emphasise the importance of treating all people with care and compassion while responding to major developments in health and social care.
“The standards were developed in collaboration with key groups like Alzheimer’s Society, Mencap, and government health departments across the UK to ensure that patients and the public continue to receive safe and effective care across an increasingly diverse and modernised range of settings.”
Perhaps the main change of the new regulations was to phase out nurse diploma programmes and make it a requirement for nurses to obtain degree level qualifications instead. The reasons behind this development were simple: it is vitally important for modern nurses to think methodically, critically and systematically as well as being able to problem solve and make tough decisions. (Not to mention keeping up with the ongoing technical advances within the sector. ) The NMC believed that a degree level programme was the best way of ensuring modern nurses were able to develop the abilities that are considered essential in delivering great service within changing environments such as care homes, GP surgeries and walk in centres.
In 2013, the modern NMC standards for competence focus on a broader scope than those of the past, with medical care only a part of the four key areas of development: professional values, communication and interpersonal skills, nursing practice and decision making, and leadership, management and team-working.
The ten standards for Nursing education are as follows:
- Safeguarding the public.
- Equality and diversity
- Selection, admission, progression and completion.
- Support of students and educators.
- Structure, design and delivery of programmes.
- Practise learning opportunities.
- Focusing on outcomes
- Assessment of skills
- Identifying the physical resources available in nursing education.
- Quality assurance.
With every nurse who goes through the educational programme trained up to the modern standards, it’s beyond debate how impressive a professional the modern nurse really is.
About the Author: This article was produced by Charlie Lake on behalf of Nursing 2000 – specialists in medical staff recruitment in the UK (including Northern Ireland).
