interviews

Examining nursing education in England

Jackie Smith, chief executive of the Nursing and Midwifery Council, talks to NHE about the new Shape of Caring review, which has been launched to examine the training and education of nurses in England.

A major review into the training and education of nurses and healthcare assistants in England has been launched to improve standards of patient care.

Launched in May, the Shape of Caring review will bring together the recommendations and evidence from recent reports into care in England, including Francis, Cavendish, Keogh and Berwick, which have highlighted the “need for improvement”.

Led independently by Lord Willis of Knaresborough, the new study will build on (rather than replicate) the recent reports and will seek out the very best practice nationally and internationally – emphasising the need to base future education and training on the highest possible standards of patient expectation.

Commissioned by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) and Health Education England (HEE), the final report, which will be delivered in January 2015, will make recommendations for improvement to current pre- and post-registration nursing and healthcare assistant education and training.

Speaking to NHE, Jackie Smith, NMC chief executive and registrar, said: “As the regulator with statutory responsibility for education and training, we need to ensure our nursing standards meet the demands that the public requires for nurses and midwives to display care and compassion.

“This review is an opportunity for us to build on the work we have already done, and on the evaluation we will be doing on our pre-registration nursing standards later this year. This study is clearly of interest widely, not just to nurses but to the public and others. And they want to be assured that what we have in place delivers what they expect.”

The review will examine the education and training provided to around 60,000 nursing and midwifery students each year. Lord Willis has also been reported as saying that potential recommendations would include an emphasis on recruiting older nurses from other careers.

Smith told us: “Prior experience is already taken account of anyway, as we have APEL (accreditation of prior experiential learning) – where we can take account of prior experience and learning. So, that is already built into our standards.

“I don’t think what he is suggesting there is anything new. The review is about the public getting the assurance it needs that a nurse going through training has the right skillset at the end of it.”

Lord (Phil) Willis, who was MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough from 1997-2010 and chair of the Commons Science and Technology Committee, has also called for greater accountability and compassion in care from the nursing profession. As part of his work, Lord Willis will examine the pre-nursing experience pilots that have seen around 160 students work as healthcare assistants for a year before receiving NHS funding for their degree, and which were a key part of the government’s initial response to the Francis report.

The review is also being overseen by a sponsoring board, which will set broad strategic direction and report to the board of HEE.

Smith will co-chair the sponsoring board with Professor Lisa Bayliss-Pratt, director of nursing at HEE.

Smith told NHE: “We are delighted Lord Willis is the independent reviewer, especially with his background and the work he did for the Royal College of Nursing [In 2012 Lord Willis was commissioned by the RCN to look at nurse education; he found no shortcomings in nursing education that could be directly responsible for poor standards of care or a decline in care standards].

“However, the important thing to bear in mind in all of this, and it risks getting lost, is that the NMC has statutory responsibility for education and training. Nobody can make a recommendation about what we do without the NMC considering it, taking account of it and making a decision about what it needs to do. So, I think that is really important. I sincerely do think there is a risk, in this debate, that this could be forgotten. And I will continue to stress this.”

HEE has stated that recent reports have shown the need to act differently with regards to training. And, while such reviews each individually contain many useful recommendations, it needs to make sure that these are all brought together, rather than working in a piecemeal way.

Although there is still some time until recommendations are made by Lord Willis, Smith added: “The review brings everything together, and it will allow us to have a good opportunity to review standards, and reflect on what is said.”

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