Championing General Practice Nursing for pre/post-registered nurses

Our Primary Care Nurse Advisor, Suzie Clements, has really valued the opportunity to meet and network with likeminded, enthusiastic 'practice nursing champions' who are working hard to promote and celebrate the role of the General Practice Nurse. It has become clear though that more work is needed to encourage nurses into general practice and grabbing their attention during their training is proving a great opportunity.

Where practices offer a favorable placement for the students both parties benefit, the student nurse develops skills and in turn can assist the practice team. With increased exposure, more nurses will be attracted to apply for a practice nurse position, and in turn secure the future GPN workforce. Suzie was recently invited to give a talk about the GPN role to student nurses and was delighted to hear how many would have liked the opportunity of a final placement. Many were interested in applying for a post in general practice but faced the barrier of having no practical or general practice  experience, experience only a placement can provide.

Suzie said:

We have a wide remit to deliver and know how stretched practices are, however, we urge practices to meet with the Tutors and Clinical Learning Environment Leads and consider opening their practices to student nurses. If more practices and their teams can open their doors to host placements for student nurses this increased exposure will attract more nurses to this branch of nursing.

Candice Yezek (pictured above), a 2nd year student nurse, embraced the opportunity to work in general practice and hasn't looked back since. She recently gave a passionate account of her experience at our Primary Care: Future Workforce conference in March 2016 and also agreed that we could share her personal reflections of her placement experience through her blog, which can be found below.

There appears to be a variety of myths and misconceptions regarding the time it takes to host a student nurse. Below you will find a quote from a practice that currently hosts student nurses and they have found the whole experience to be very positive.

Granta Medical Practices reflected on student nurses in practice:

Having student nurses in the practice is a positive experience and several students have expressed an interest in coming into general practice in the future. We have found that the students are 'generally enthusiastic and interested'. Benefits include 'making us think about the way in which we practice' and 'it's great to hear about what is happening currently in hospital practice', while 'students will often offer an alternative viewpoint for patient care/needs that can generate discussion' and they are frequently helpful from a practical point of view. We allow an additional 20 minutes per morning or afternoon session to enable discussion and teaching, and expect students to do some research around a couple of relevant subjects e.g. atrial fibrillation, self-management of a chronic disease, wound management etc. during any slack time with us. We have them in the surgery for two-week insight placements and there is only a small amount of administration involved.

GPN tutor/mentor

The role of a Nurse Tutor / Mentor is vital to the training and education of student nurses in general practice, a role that can be very fulfilling and worthwhile. For an insight into this role one of our Nurse Tutors has shared her experiences to date and can give you a flavour of the work being undertaken, which could be replicated across the region.

Josie Johnson, Nurse Tutor - Cambs and Peterborough:

It is a great privilege to be part of a team that is building the workforce of the future in general practice across C&P, it is a very exciting role.  My previous experience as a practice nurse (15 years) has been invaluable in influencing the nursing workforce to begin to own the idea that we as nurses can build our workforce of the future, rather than leave it to other professions (GP's). Our experience as practice nurses has given us a real understanding of the challenges facing general practices wishing to accommodate pre-reg student nurses and how they may be overcome. Our role also enables us to act as a resource to GPN’s for their cpd, which has been well received. Nurses in general practice often work in isolation from other GPN's and are often unaware of learning opportunities, where and how to access them and how to access funding for cpd. My role as a mentor has had a positive impact on the system in that we can see experienced nurses grow and develop further and also pass on their enormous wealth of knowledge and expertise, benefiting the workforce of the future.

What's currently happening?

Some fantastic work is already being undertaken across the east, an example from West Suffolk CCG can be found below.

Victoria Fennell, Project Lead - West Suffolk Community Education Provider Network:

West Suffolk Clinical Commissioning Group have established a Community Education Provider Network to bring primary and community care services and education providers together to focus on education and workforce planning. We want to ensure that we have the right number of health and care professionals with the right skills within Primary Care to meet the evolving needs of local people.

Dr Andrew Yager and Amanda Gibson are leading the work with practices to explore ways in increasing the number of pre-registration student placements in Primary Care. Meetings have taken place with interested parties in the same locality to discuss how we can adapt the hub and spoke model to ensure that both the student and staff benefit from the placement. An overwhelming number or practices have expressed an interest in hosting placements which has enabled us to work towards piloting two hub and spoke models; one in Bury St Edmunds and the other in Newmarket.  We have received 12 expressions of interest for mentorship in West Suffolk to date and will be working closely with the Norfolk and Suffolk Workforce Partnership to explore the most effective way to support these individuals in completing their module. 

We are looking forward to commencing the hub and spoke pilots in September 2016 and are hopeful that these will set a precedent for Pre-Registration placements in Primary Care.

If you would like more information about student nurse placements in your practice contact us today on suzie.clements@nhs.net.