Practical hands-on training and experience

Accepted.
In its initial response to The Inquiry, Patients First and Foremost, the Government committed to a pilot programme, whereby every student who seeks NHS funding for nursing degrees will serve up to a year as a healthcare assistant.
The pilot is an opportunity for aspiring nurse students to get real, paid caring experience for up to one year as a healthcare assistant before entering undergraduate nursing education, to see if nursing is right for them and they are right for nursing.
In September 2013, Health Education England established the first set of pilots, and approximately 150 aspiring student nurses began working as healthcare assistants. Health Education England is looking to introduce further pilots in Spring 2014. On completion the pilot will be evaluated to see how pre-degree care experience could be rolled out in an affordable and cost-neutral way, so that everybody who wants to train to be a nurse is able to get caring experience before they start their studies. The evaluation results of the pilot scheme will need to be considered in the context of the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s 2010 pre-registration nursing standards and their application across the four countries of the United Kingdom.
We believe that students will enter their nursing degree course with increased confidence that this is the career for them, along with a genuine and demonstrated aptitude for caring. In addition, all nursing degree programmes last at least three years and require that 50 per cent of time is spent in practice learning and 50 per cent in academic study. The first progression point cannot be passed unless the student undertakes a period of practice learning and assessment, and so nursing students will continue to gain experience in care environments throughout their studies.
Alongside this, work is on-going to make a career in nursing more accessible for those staff who already give care, as set out in the Government’s Mandate to Health Education England.

As set out in response to the recommendation above, the NMC’s education standards were updated in 2023 following the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. The amount of practice learning hours remains the same - all education programmes must meet the equivalent minimum length of three (academic) years for full time programmes which consist of a minimum of 4,600 hours. 50 percent of time (2,300 hours) must be spent in practice learning, of which a maximum of 600 hours can be simulated practice learning. The number of practice learning hours are in line with those mandated by EU law. Further details on NMC standards are in response to recommendation 186.

The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan (June 2023) sets out a series of interventions to train, retain and reform the workforce, and put the NHS on a sustainable footing into the future. Backed by more than £2.4 billion in government investment it outlines how the NHS will address existing vacancies and meet the challenges of a growing and aging population by recruiting and retaining hundreds of thousands more staff over the next 15 years and reforming the way the service works. NHS England has committed to review the plan at least every two years. This has a key focus on nursing.

In September 2013, Health Education England established the first set of pilots, and approximately 150 aspiring student nurses have now completed up to one year working as healthcare assistants, gaining experience of caring prior to starting their studies. In April 2014, a further 90 aspiring student nurses began work, with a further 160 healthcare assistants entering the programme in September 2014. Between approximately 250 and 400 further participants are expected by Spring 2015.

This recommendation was accepted by the Government.

The Government, through Health Education England, established a pilot programme placing students seeking NHS funding for NHS degrees on placements up to a year-long working as a healthcare assistant, which extended into spring 2015. The Nursing and Midwifery Council’s July 2013 response was that the requirement for all full time nursing education programmes to involve at least 50% of time spent in hands-on training in a practice setting, met the ‘spirit as well as the letter’ of the recommendation. The Nursing and Midwifery Council did not consider that requiring candidates for nursing education programmes to undertake a minimum period in a healthcare support role would advance patient safety.

The Royal College of Nursing’s view was that this recommendation failed to acknowledge the extent of practical experience which was already on offer.