Nurse education in the UK
Dr Stephanie Mckendry
Learning outcomes for today’s lecture
By the end of this lecture, you should have an
introductory knowledge of:
-
The history of nursing education in the twentieth century
The impact of Project 2000
The case for university education? The critical, evidence-based practitioner
Challenges for the student nurse
Evolution of nursing education in
the UK
• Initially viewed as an overtly religious
‘calling’, an unselfish urge to tend the sick,
the last 150 years have seen nursing
transform into the largely secularised
profession of today (Rognstadt 2002).
• October 2008 NMC announced that
nursing was to become all-degree
profession.
• Accepted academic discipline and
profession?
Picture source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Florence_Nightingale_three_quarter_length.jpg?uselang=en-gb
Image in public domain due to copyright expiry
Evolution of nursing education in
the UK
Training in schools of nursing attached
to hospitals
Late
1980s/1990s
Project 2000: nurses studying towards
diplomas/degrees within HEIs
Scotland: 2011
UK: 2013
All degree profession
Project 2000
1986: UKCC publish Project 2000 - service-led, hospitalbased apprenticeship model of training then in use was
not best preparation for practice (McCarey et al 2007).
• Theory practice-gap
• Inefficiency: 65% retention rate
• High staff turnover (students included in workforce)
Recommendations:
3 year HEI based education
Supernumary status
By 2013 only degree level pre-registration programmes
for nursing
The case for university-based
education
-Professionalisation, increase recruitment
-Evidence based practice (Kedge & Appleby, 2009)
-Complexity of care, increased autonomy and decisionmaking, multi-disciplinary team
-Need for critical skills and graduate attributes.
-Student centred approach
‘to meet present and future health and social care
challenges, nurses must... be analytical, assertive, creative,
competent, confident, computer literate, decisive, reflective,
embracers of change and the critical doers and consumers
of research’ (McKenna et al 2006, 135)
Challenges: Learning in a HE
environment
Funding, retention
Policy: diverse NHS workforce, widening access
to higher education
‘non-traditional’ students
-No family tradition? Lack cultural capital?
Caring commitments?
- Theories of academic literacies (Lea & Street
Challenges: hostility to the
graduate nurse
• Government and policy
• Media and popular perceptions
• Student and staff expectations
‘You don’t learn compassion at university’ (Daily
Mail 2009)
Nurse training ‘too academic’ (David Cameron
2010)
References and additional reading
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Alligood, M. R. (2006a). Introduction to nursing theory: Its history, significance, and analysis.
In A. M. Tomey & M. R. Alligood (Eds.), Nursing theorists and their work (6th ed., pp. 3-15).
St. Louis, MO: Mosby Elsevier
Carr, G. 2007. Changes in nurse education: Being a nurse teacher. Nurse Education Today. 27,
no.1:893-899.
Kedge, S. & Appleby, B. (2009) ‘Promoting a culture of curiosity within nursing practice’,
British Journal of Nursing, 19 (10), pp. 635-637
McCarey, M., Barr, T. & Rattray, J. (2007), ‘Predictors of academic performance in a cohort of
pre-registration nursing students’, Nurse Education Today, 27, pp. 357-364
Mckendry, S., McKay, G., Boyd, V. & Andrew, N. (2011) ‘The route into the academy: the
liminal state of the nursing and construction professions?’, Teaching in Higher Education.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2011.611867
McKenna, H., Thompson, D., Watson, R. & Norman, I., (2006) ‘The good old days of nurse
training: rose-tinted or jaundiced view?’, International Journal of Nursing Studies, 43, pp.
135-137.
Rognstadt, M-K. 2002. Recruitment to and motivation for nursing education and the nursing
profession. Journal of Nursing Education. 41, no. 7:321-325.
Thompson, D. 2009. Is nursing viable as an academic discipline? Nurse Education Today.
29:694-697