NHS Employers earlier this year produced a discussion paper on the role of the nurse. It aims to give employers a summary of the emerging issues and to provoke thought and discussion about proposals to modernise the nursing workforce.
The document covers seven key areas for discussion and poses a number of questions for employers, the areas are:
- degree level registration for new entrants to the profession
- embedding the practice of preceptorship
- supporting roles: healthcare assistants and assistant practitioners
- access routes into nursing
- flexible career pathways
- enhancing patient experience
- measuring nurse performance
Download the document 'Discussion paper: The role of the nurse'
NHS organisations were invited to comment on the content of the discussion paper and the consultation period closed on 31 August 2009.
NHS Employers work programme
We continue to represent employers, working closely with the Department of Health and the Nursing and Midwifery Council on various policy formulation groups. The feedback we gather from our online questionnaire will help us to ensure that we are reflecting your views and interests.
In addition, we
- aim to gather and publish case studies on preceptorship, training for bands 1-4 and metrics, if you have any to share please email sharedlearning@nhsemployers.org
- continue to support the both the development of nursing metrics as a first step to improving the quality of nursing care
- support the programme on Modernising Nursing Careers and educational pathways to ensure that employers are able to recruit and retain the best candidates
- continue to review the education and career pathways for nursing
- support the development work around career pathways for clinical support roles in bands 1-4
- will feed employers views into the Department of Health's review of student support arrangements and changes to the NHS Bursary Scheme
- will engage employers in the
transforming community services work to ensure they are involved in developing the vision and play an integral role to any work programmes involving nursing and midwifery.