NHS Employers is developing a programme of work around the future of the nursing workforce to ensure it is fit for purpose. The workforce aspects will feed into a wider NHS Confederation project on the patient experience and nursing care including dignity, infection control and essence of care issues which will be developed over the next few months.
Consultations
As part of this work programme we have submitted responses to the two consultations launched in November 2007, looking at the future of nurses' education and careers. The regulatory body, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) is conducting a UK wide consultation to review pre-registration nursing education, whilst the Department of Health (DH) is consulting on post registration nursing careers in England.
We gathered the views of employers through an on-line questionnaire, from our networks and our Healthcare Professions forum. We also dedicated a session at the Nursing Times nursing summit in January to debate both consultations. Our findings show a general consensus on many of the proposals and questions, including:
- that minimum academic level should be a degree qualification
- there should be both a common foundation and a common core
- the concept of a specialist branch should remain
- nursing students would benefit from generalist skills
- a mandatory consolidation period should be set by the NMC
- there is a clear need for change in the post-registration career structure
- the proposed framework is a positive way forward for nursing careers
- it would be helpful to clearly link job title, level of practice and educational attainment
- the proposed framework offers flexibility
NHS Employers welcomes the opportunity that both consultations provide to work with employers and stakeholders to explore the key issues regarding the education of nurses and how they work in the NHS. Over the coming months we plan to take forward further discussions on the future of nursing with colleagues in the NHS and national organisations.
We hope to build on the progress nurses have been making towards providing the safest and highest standards of personalised care and improving NHS patient experience.
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Summaries of the NHS Employers responses
We have provided a summary of both responses that we submitted to the consultations:
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Summaries of consultation documents
Post registration nursing
This section provides a summary of the Department of Health's consultation document 'Towards a Framework for Post Registration Nursing Careers'. The document sets out initial proposals that reflect changing health needs and the new ways in which healthcare is being delivered, by organising nursing careers around a series of 'patient pathways'.
Pre-registration nursing
This section provides a summary of the Nursing and Midwifery Council's (NMC) consultation on pre-registration nursing 'A review of pre-registration nursing education.' The review will consider the education that students receive in preparation to register to practice as a Registered Nurse.
NHS Employers response to the DH
NHS Employers gathered employers' views to feed inform its response to the Department of Health's (DH) consultation 'towards a framework for post-registration nursing careers.' The following page provides a summary of the response we submitted and is broken down into the relevant sections for ease of reference
NHS Employers response to the NMC
NHS Employers gathered employers' views to inform its response to the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) consultation 'A review of pre-registration nursing education'. The following page provides a summary of the response we submitted and is broken down into the relevant sections for ease of reference
Employing nurses - evidence review
Online briefing: Employment of registered nurses: effects on patient outcome and on nurse employees - an overview of recent evidence.
Modernising Nursing Careers
Modernising Nursing Careers - setting the direction was published by the Department of Health in September 2006 on behalf of four UK health departments. Our work in helping the NHS to deliver some of its aims is set out here.
