Learning with the RCN
RCN Learning Zone
The Learning Zone provides RCN members with online continuing professional development learning opportunities designed with a busy lifestyle in mind.
The Learning Zone includes a number of learning opportuntities relating to patient safety and other quality issues:
Patient safety
This learning area will help you to understand the scale and gravity of patient safety incidents in healthcare settings, and to recognise how human factors, technical processes and organisational systems can all play a part in causing incidents...and can also provide ways of improving patient safety.
NICE care: Venous thromboembolism prophylaxis (VTE)
This resource has been developed to support health care assistants, students and registered nurses to implement the NICE guideline 'Venous thromboembolism: reducing the risk'. It focuses primarily on understanding and preventing VTE, identifying patients at risk and includes an in depth look at VTE risk assessments. This is also available at CPD online learning.
Supporting people's nutritional needs - getting started
Nutrition and hydration, when poorly managed, can pose a significant threat to patient safety. This learning area focuses on general nutrition. It has been primarily developed for health care assistants (HCAs) but is also a useful learning opportunity for student and registered nurses for updating their own practice. This is also available at CPD online learning.
Clinical audit
Clinical audit is a way of reviewing clinical performance, making changes against agreed standards and reassessing clinical performance in the light of changes made. It is a cyclical process of improving the quality of care.
Numeracy skills
Difficulty with numbers is a very common problem. That said, many of us are continually, and at critical moments, performing mathematical tasks in our day-to-day lives, and making extensive use of our numeracy skills in our work. For healthcare workers, the most obvious use of numbers relates to administration of medicines - but we use numbers and calculations in many different ways.
Stress management
Pressure is part and parcel of our changing lives, and inevitably brings challenges and demands. Although pressure can keep us motivated, excessive pressure can lead to stress and can undermine our performance, possibly leaving us feeling isolated and ill. Stress itself can also lead to debilitating illnesses. The learning area tackles these issues and helps you identify strategies to cope with difficult. situations.
Communication tools
Making others aware of your own feelings and needs, without impinging on theirs, requires a group of skills which relate to your ability to communicate effectively and, in particular, your ability to assert yourself - that is, saying what you want to say in a way which is accepted and understood by the people it affects. This area looks at the following issues: negotiating with line managers and family members; working with others; resolving conflict and delegation.
Team effectiveness
This resource will help members of the nursing family develop a clear understanding of teamwork and team effectiveness. For anyone interested in improving ways of teamworking, this resource offers useful, stimulating and practical ideas, while also aiming to address some of the challenges facing teams employed in rapidly changing environments. The audience for this resource, therefore, is anyone who works in a team or would like to learn more about successful teamworking.
Preventing healthcare associated infections
This learning area offers you a quick and practical way to build your awareness, knowledge and attitudes into an action plan that can really make a difference to patient care.
ePortfolio
The ePortfolio is the place where you can capture information about your personal and professional development and make use of all the information and evidence about you and your skills. It could be to create your CV, for your KSF submission, or just to demonstrate that you are continuously developing your skills and knowledge.
RCN members can view these learning opportunities in full by accessing the Learning Zone.