Health Education England is encouraging young people to consider degrees in nursing and the allied health professions, highlighting the high employment rates and the chance to make a difference to people’s lives.

Access resources to promote these careers to undergraduates here 

Health Education England (HEE) has launched a series of films for overseas nurses and their trainers to help support transition and integration into UK practice.
The new resource consists of several training videos aimed at familiarising overseas nurses to UK clinical environments, and to offer some insights and orientation to simulation based clinical scenarios. The resource is intended to be a support at the point of registration and is not a guide to passing the objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) exam as part of the Nursing and Midwifery Council part 2 test of competence. It does however offer tips and signpost to references that may be beneficial in preparing for the OSCE exam.
The films were developed at the request of NHS nurse educators who are tasked with supporting and integrating newly appointed international nurse recruits. The content is based on the Royal Marsden Manual of Clinical Nursing Procedures (9th Edition) and the European Resuscitation Council Guidelines (2015).
To help support the integration of overseas nurses into UK practice, employers are encouraged to share the resource with new recruits. They can download the training videos and use them flexibly as a revision aid.

*Credits: NHS Employers

Access early working drafts of the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s skills annexe and standards of proficiency, which will apply to the new nursing associate role.

Read more here

The module will provide clinicians with background information, principles and practical skills in using the national key enablers for end of life care, which may be localised in the area in which they work and therefore may have different names or content - the participants will be encouraged to research the forms of enablers used in their locality. These include the principles of co-ordinating the care of those approaching the end of life, planning for their future care, dealing with uncertainty in the situation of acute illness (with uncertain recovery) in those with an already poor prognosis, recognising and providing care for the dying in line with the Priorities for Care of the Dying (2014), the NICE Guidance for Care of the Dying Adult (2015) and respecting patient choices when dying has been recognised.

The module will include a review of the development of palliative and end of life care, and cover the building blocks of symptom assessment and management, care planning, communication skills, ethics related to living the last months of life, spiritual assessment and care, bereavement care and future care planning.

Read more here

NHS Confederation member organisations can receive discounted subscriptions to RCNi Portfolio and RCNi Learning, which aim to support your nurses through revalidation and enhance their skills while improving staff retention and reducing recruitment costs. Read more on the RCNi website

The Department of Health is currently running a 12-week consultation which will result in the biggest reform of the professional regulatory system across health and social care.

The proposals in the consultation Promoting professionalism, reforming regulation could affect how employers determine the suitability and fitness to practise of healthcare professionals in their workforce.

The proposals which will impact employers include:

• Streamlining of the regulatory system to make it easier for employers, who often need to interact with numerous different bodies responsible for regulation, to navigate
• Reduction in the number of healthcare professionals that fall under statutory regulation
• Having a consistent set of standards which are underpinned by profession specific codes so that individuals are managed in a consistent and supportive manner
• Changing how fitness to practise procedures are carried out to ensure greater interaction with registrants early on to ensure issues are dealt with in a proportionate and responsive way
• Developing a flexible workforce that is more responsive in meeting the challenges in delivering healthcare in the future
  

How to have your say
It is important that this consultation helps develop a modern system of healthcare regulation which can meet the demands of a rapidly changing health and social care landscape.
NHS Employers will be preparing a collective response to the consultation on behalf of employers. If you would like your feedback to be considered for inclusion in our response, you can respond in either of the following ways:

• by completing our online survey
• by emailing us at regulation@nhsemployers.org

All responses must be received by close of play on 12 January 2018.

We would be interested to hear your views on what works in the current system, what are the challenges and whether the proposals outlined in the consultation paper will address some of these issues. If not, what other considerations do you think should be taken into account?

We would also urge employers to provide feedback directly to the Department of Health by 23 January 2018.

A new national framework that sets out and defines the role of advanced clinical practitioners (ACPs) has been launched by Health Education England (HEE), in partnership with NHS Improvement and NHS England.

Drawing on existing practice, the new framework has been developed to ensure that there is consistency about what advanced level practice is. It includes the requirements for entry into the role, and defines the core capabilities with a recommended standard of education. This not only gives clarity to current and future ACPs, but also for other healthcare staff, employers and patients.

ACPs support existing and more established roles within multi-professional teams, and can help to provide and improve clinical continuity and access to high-quality care for patients. HEE expect the new resource will help to transform and promote team working across traditional professional boundaries and support the delivery of high quality healthcare for local people. 

The National Framework for Multi-Professional Advanced Clinical Practice is available to download. 

You can read more about Advanced Clinical Practice on our website.

From 1 November, new language competency requirements will come into effect for nurses and midwives trained outside the UK, that will permit alternative evidence of language competence in addition to the International English Language test system (IELTS).

Read more here

Take a look at our infographic exploring the different routes into nursing for employers.Until recently, the routes to developing registered nurses within the workforce have been limited, with the university degree being the main way to train this group of staff. 

The introduction of the nursing degree apprenticeship gives a new opportunity for employers to train nurses, while the creation of the new nursing associate role can help to be a bridge between healthcare assistants and graduate registered nurses. These new routes can create a confusing picture for employers and so we have created a resource to support you to make the most of the new and existing routes into nursing.