HEE marks the third anniversary of Nursing Associates on the NMC register

To celebrate the third anniversary of Nursing Associates on the NMC register, HEE’s Deputy Chief Nurse, James McLean reflects on this essential role.

Today marks three years since the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) opened their register to include nursing associates.  

This is a significant milestone for this important role which only recently marked five years since it was created. The nursing associate role was introduced to help build the capacity of the nursing workforce and support the delivery of high-quality care. It is now a vital role within health and care teams and offers career progression for health care support workers as well as a progression route to registered nurse for anyone wanting to follow that path.  

Nursing associates work with people of all ages and in a variety of settings in health and social care, bridging the professional space between healthcare support workers and graduate registered nurses. Trainees move across placement settings in the NHS (though some work in hospices, GP surgeries or social care) and can exchange skills, knowledge and good practice across these different settings, which improves the quality of care and services they are able to deliver. Nursing associates work across all four fields of nursing: adult, children’s, mental health, and learning disability and responsibilities vary, depending on the care setting they work in.

Following the initial two-year pilot, HEE conducted a review of the role which included gathering feedback from employers. This was very positive and one of the main things they said they value is this exchange of skills between mental and physical health settings. Nursing associates have a diverse and important role in the NHS and undertake a wide range of duties. These includes hands on care - performing and recording clinical observations such as blood pressure, temperature, respirations and pulse and clinical tasks including venepuncture and ECGs. It also involves supporting individuals and their families and carers – one of the fundamentals of all nursing roles such as being there when they face difficult news or a life-changing diagnoses, ensuring the privacy, dignity and safety of individuals is always maintained and being able to recognise and flag any issues with a patient, which may be either health related or pastoral.

At the end of a two-year training programme, nursing associates are trained to foundation degree level, they will have been exposed to multidisciplinary working with a range of population groups and conditions and they will have the ability to work across a variety of settings. The first cohort started their nursing associate training in 2017. Since then, almost 20,000 people have started their training to be a NA and 11,179 have signed off against standards aligned to the HEE standards, meaning they are eligible to register.

Introducing the nursing associate role has created a recognised career pathway for band 1-4 staff and has widened access into nursing, ensuring the workforce reflects its local populations. The programme offers an opportunity to progress their careers and develop broad skills and the apprenticeship route has supported some people to go to university who might otherwise not have been able because of family or financial commitments.

Though there is an identified career path, nursing associates are a key part of care delivery, and the role is both challenging and rewarding with an opportunity to develop a range of care skills, across NHS settings. The ambition for the future is to continue to recruit even more people and expand the numbers working in this role which reflects how embedded it has become in the wider nursing profession and how valued it is by clinicians and employers.

If you or anyone you know is interested in becoming a nursing associate, visit the NHS Health Careers website to find out more.