Geraldine Walters
Over the last five years, we have been renewing all of our education standards. We have two types of educational standards: “standards of proficiency” which describe what people need to know and be able to do to gain an NMC qualification, and “standards of education and training”, which describe the standards education providers must meet, if they wish to run a programme which leads to a regulated qualification.
“We really want people to respond, so we can finalise the standards with the benefit of as many views as possible”
Geraldine Walters
The final project is to renew our post-registration qualifications in specialist community and public health nursing. This review is particularly timely, as the pandemic has demonstrated how important these professionals, and these roles, are.
The UK’s four chief nursing officers are among those urging nurses to have their say on the future of community and public health nursing, as part of a new consultation on controversial plans for change.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council is seeking views on its draft standards for specialist community public health nursing (SCPHN) qualifications and specialist practice qualifications (SPQs).
“This consultation has significant implications for nursing and midwifery colleagues right across health and social care”
Ruth May
Among the roles covered by the standards include health visitors, occupational health nurses, school nurses, district nurses and general practice nurses.
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The regulator has pledged to put the question about bespoke standards to the public and profession during a consultation on the draft proposals, which had been postponed due to Covid-19 but is due to open early April.
However, in the letter, the community nursing leaders say bespoke standards have already been identified, but appear to have been overlooked by the NMC.
As part of the work to renew the standards, the NMC commissioned a report by consultants Pye Tait to analyse and summarise themes arising from the engagement process in 2020.
The nursing leaders behind the letter have analysed the report and said they had identified 27 bespoke standards across the SPQ community fields of practice.