Letter from the Chair

Published: 28 November 2012

Nursing education is going through particularly exciting times. The findings of the Independent Willis Commission on nursing education launched in November are enormously encouraging for the future of nursing as a graduate profession in the UK. However, there are also challenges. The student experience must be commensurate with achieving graduate learning today and delivering the professionals of tomorrow. This can be tough, especially when finances are tight. Students must be allowed to be students and, critically, should not be seen as workforce in these restrained times. However, equally, they must realise the complexities of health care employment and what they are being prepared to become.

We’re currently in the process of the first run at delivering a new curriculum designed to meet the 2010 Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) standards, and as ever we’re providing the all-important support and development of students as they complete their studies and enter the profession.

In Europe too, it is a critical time for nursing and nursing education, as politicians decide how to vote on the Modernisation of the Professional Qualifications Directive EU/36/2005.  This, for the uninitiated, is the law which dictates how many hours there should be in a pre-registration nursing or midwifery course, and how many should be spent in practice. It also governs how much education candidates should have prior to nursing entry and what kind of learning content should be included in nursing programmes. It is interpreted  into UK standards by the NMC for our benefit. 

While all agree modernisation of the law is needed to meet the requirements of today’s nursing profession, what and how change should be made is much more debatable. Agreeing on a modernised directive involves taking the differing political and economic interests of each member country into consideration and working out the best solutions for health care consumers. 

The Education Forum committee has been working hard with the RCN Policy and International Department to establish the RCN’s  position on some key issues. We are lobbying for the following conditions.

• Those entering nursing should have completed 12 years of primary and secondary education (or an equivalence related to maturity and level within adult education).
• The hours and time for nursing education should be reconsidered in the light of the development of competences and learning outcomes in the future. These should be debated by the profession and its stakeholders until reasonable conclusions in light of the best educational and professional evidence can be achieved. These should not form the main body of the legislation, but be included within an annexe, where modernisation can be made more simply and rapidly to meet contemporary need.
• Nursing should have a requirement for continuous professional development to be included in accordance with local regulation where nurses migrate.

As a further note in respect of continuing professional development, changes to contracting arrangements for learning beyond registration seem to be causing confusion for some. This situation, combined with current economic situation, appears to present a real risk for the available provision of specialist programmes for nursing. This is a tragedy since, if there are funded specialist and CPD programmes available which providers may struggle to fill, they may ultimately be lost to nursing. I’d like to take this opportunity to ask you to remind colleagues to find out what is happening locally and to contact your local education provider to determine what is available and feed the information back to me.

Finally, we have just completed a wonderful conference with the Federation of European Nurse EducatorsFine, which brought together the best of both organisations in a vibrant and stimulating week. For those who came along, thank you! I hope you were able to take many things home to your practice. For those who missed out: the RCN Education Forum is now looking forward to the next international conference, Beyond the Borders, which will be in June 2013. The abstract call and further details will be available very soon.

Carol Hall  
Chair, Education Forum