Kathy’s Blog - January 2017

Welcome to our blog, we haven’t updated you for a while but the team has been busy further developing existing and trialling new key deliverables of the Supply Improvement Programme. With the start of a new year I have taken time to look back over this past 12 months and it has given me great pleasure to see what has been achieved. 

Flexible Nursing Pathway – Celebrating Success Event

We held the “Flexible Nursing Pathway – Celebrating Success Event” on the 6 December 2016 in Bury St Edmunds , the event was attended by over 50 students, nurse managers, education leads and university staff to celebrate the success of the Flexible Nursing Pathway. Some of the students have now completed their programmes whilst others are still in training and we decided it was time to showcase their progress and share both the challenges and benefits the pathway has provided.

The pathway is the first of its kind to enable Assistant Practitioners, with a Foundation Degree to complete a degree in nursing in 18 months and earn a salary while doing it. 

The Flexible Nursing Pathway was developed by University of Essex and North Essex Partnership Trust in 2013 with 5 students initially and these students achieved 2 x First degrees, 2 x 2.1 degrees and 1 x 3rd degree.  In 2015 the Pathway was rolled out to 5 out of 6 of our HEIs, as part of the Supply Improvement Programme with a 117 students joining the first cohorts and we now have places for 140 students. The students come from all settings including community and primary care and have access to studying all branches of nursing.

The pathway is important because it’s a quick route to grow more nurses, provides a progression route for our talented healthcare support workers, and develops a workforce  already committed to their local NHS who understand about delivering care. The pathway will continue to change and develop and will eventually align with the Apprenticeship Framework for nurse education.

Students on the programme presented on stage, with posters and in panel discussions. There were many inspirational stories where the students shared their experiences and the challenges they faced but they all acknowledged that this was an opportunity they thought they would never have had to train to become a registered nurse. Many of them are already thinking about their next career steps and the nurses they want to be. Students from Provide made an excellent film of their journey (below), but have your hankies at the ready.

Hayley Webb from Colchester Hospital University Foundation Trust developed a fantastic poster describing the ‘yellow brick road’ of her journey ‘because you need courage, a heart, and the journey has a happy ending’.

The event demonstrated the incredible opportunity afforded to these students and those that will follow them.  You can see to some of the attendees explaining what the Flexible Nursing pathway means to them in this film from the day.

Sponsored MSc

This is an exciting initiative which taps into the pool of people who have a non-health related degree and who wish to train as a nurse. For those who do not have any previous care experience there is the opportunity to do a 16 – 18 week pre-nursing clinical experience programme which ensures they complete the care certificate and meet the NMC competency requirements to progress into the 2 year MSc programme.

Trusts are offering £3,000 a year sponsorship and once they have qualified they will return to their sponsored Trust as registered nurse for a minimum of 3 years and will follow a planned post-graduate development programme. This is the first sponsored MSc programme supported by local Trusts. It is currently being offered at 3 universities, University of East Anglia, University of Bedfordshire and Anglia Ruskin University. The 5 sponsored students who will be attending the University of East Anglia have completed their pre-nursing experience, submitted their portfolios, and will be entering their programme at the beginning of the New Year. Students have also been recruited at University of Bedfordshire and will be starting their MSc Programme by March 2017. Students sponsored at Anglia Ruskin University have been selected from staff with existing first degrees who already work in clinical roles and therefore the clinical pre experience time required has been shorter.

Nursing Associate test bed sites

The Shape of Caring Review recommended the development of this new role because of a need in the NHS - from patients, trainees and the service, nursing associates will work alongside care assistants and registered nurses to deliver hands-on care, focusing on ensuring patients continue to get the compassionate, high quality care. Its introduction has the potential to transform the nursing and care workforce and HEE aims to ensure that the staff of the future is ready, willing and able to deliver the care patients need and can adapt to change as it happens. It is part of creating a career pathway that offers progression opportunities and gives job satisfaction to those who want to develop whilst at the same delivering a new type of care worker with a higher skill-set to assist, support and complement the care given by registered nurses. A National Curriculum Framework and Job Description have been developed and work on an apprenticeship trailblazer and bridging programme from an AP role to an NA have begun. The Department of Health has asked the NMC to regulate the role and this request will be considered at the NMC Board on 25th January 2017. For more information see here.

1,000 trainee places were originally planned in the first wave of test bed sites followed by another 1,000 fast follower sites and I am delighted to advise that three sites across the region who submitted bids have been chosen to become part of the nursing associate test bed programme.

First wave site

• Cambridge & Peterborough Partnership: 36 trainees commencing Jan 17

Two fast follower sites

• Bedfordshire Partnership: 38 trainee places commencing April 17
• Hertfordshire Partnership: 69 trainee places commencing April 17

Cambridge and Peterborough Partnership are forging ahead - Anglia Ruskin held a programme approval (Level 5) event on the 15 December and interviews have been completed with the required number of successful candidates coming through. A launch event for the trainees was held on the 23 January at Anglia Ruskin University, attended by all partners in the site and the trainees will take up post by 31 January. The Fast Follower sites are working very hard to set up the recruitment processes and curriculum approval events, interviews are planned for February and there has already been significant interest expressed by potential candidates across both sites. This is a really exciting time and I will provide a further update in my next blog.

Improving capacity and quality in the clinical learning environment

James Paget University Hospital – CliP Conference

On 22 November James Paget University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (JPUH) held a hugely successful conference celebrating the Collaborative Learning in Practice (CLiP) coaching model that is being rolled out across the trust. We were delighted to be invited and supported the conference which was held in partnership with University of East Anglia and University of Suffolk.   More than 80 people attended from around the country, keen to hear their story and how they rolled the coaching model out.  Key speakers included Lynne Wigens, Regional Chief Nurse for NHS England. Sharon Crowle, Head of Education and Practice Development, shared JPUH’s journey and Karen Thom (clinical educator) and six students all spoke about their experiences of the CLiP model. In the afternoon there were a number of break-out sessions which provided an opportunity for those who attended to share ideas and gain the information to implement a similar model in their trust.   

The coaching model has allowed JPUH to enhance its learning environments and double placement capacity and, while further data is needed, early indicators suggest it enhances quality aspects such as reducing falls, length of stay and pressure ulcers. JPUH will continue to roll out this hugely successful model across the trust but also work with the patient experience department to explore further the patient’s experience of this model.  The next steps include ensuring that clinical areas are all learner wards for all professionals.  For further information some presentations from the day can be found here (or attached to this page) plus an article about the event was written by the Nursing Times.

Clinical learning environment workshop

On 18 October we held a workshop for delegates from service and education across the East of England who worked in groups aligned to their STP footprints to explore the future and what it could mean to them.

Using the lens of the Clinical Learning Environment the workshop aimed to:

• Provide the opportunity to explore the new education funding and quality management systems
• Develop a better understanding of the new quality and funding system and influence local implementation
• Identify the support required to manage transition and implement the new arrangements

Midlands and East clinical learning environment workshop

HEE hosted an event in Birmingham on the 29th November to showcase the work undertaken across HEE East developing the Clinical Learning Environment. Beverley Ingram (Regional Clinical Lead HEE Midlands and East) hosted the event with attendees from across midlands and east. Presentations demonstrated the implementation and learning from new models including Collaborative Learning in Practice (CLiP) Practice Education Based Learning (Suffolk) PEBL(S) and Enhanced Mentorship Framework. The key themes from these models were then explored in group work.

• A model based on coaching
• Learners delivering hands-on care
• Leadership for education and executive sign-up
• A sustainable infrastructure
• Linking education and workforce supply to Trust business

The participants were enthusiastic and took away individual and collective actions to take forward in their own Trusts and STP areas.

Maximising supply through education

We have been developing a best practice guide drawing together learning from the work undertaken by the team and from established initiatives in a number of provider organisations aimed at maximising supply through education and employment

I am pleased to tell you this is now ready and available on our website for you to download and share.  We are also in the process of making a talking heads film with a number of Directors of Nursing who will share their experience of best practice initiatives that will hopefully encourage you to add some of these to your existing tool kits.

I very much hope that you have been inspired by what you have read here.  We are holding a few workshops in February and March to share what we have developed, good practice and to give the attendees access any resources for them to adapt locally as required:

• Leeds - 22nd February
• East of England - 28th March
• East Midlands - 7th March
• Birmingham - 8th March

Online registration will be available but if you are interested in attending, and have not yet received any details please send an email to fiona.emblem@hee.nhs.uk stating which one you want to attend.

As you can see, the work programmes we have put in place have gained traction and it is great to be able to report some outcomes back. I look forward to providing a further update in my next blog.