Nursing and Midwifery Council Education Consultation with @WeMHNurses and @MHNAUK Twitter Chat

Nursing and Midwifery Education is currently undergoing a seismic shift, with the introduction of new roles in healthcare and the removal of bursaries for healthcare students.  These system wide changes are set to continue with the introduction of new educational requirements from the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council(NMC) have proposed a significant reform to the standards of education for Nurses and Midwives.  Rapidly changing healthcare and higher education contexts have informed the desire for a new framework which recognises professionals will be delivering care within the home, employing a range of technological advances whilst enabling nurses to undertake new roles, working within an integrated health and social care system.  The case for change was built upon in an independent evaluation of current educational standards. It  highlighted that there was a desire to:

• Enhance the confidence of newly qualified nurses
• Emphasise patients as partners in the care giving process
• Create greater flexibility for registered nurses to work across arange of settings
• Enable education to have a greater focus on outcomes
• Create freedom for innovation and flexibility in practice learningand assessment.

There are two aspects of the educational changes that are currently open for consultation

1. Standards of Proficiency for registered nurses which outlines what nurses can perform when they join the register
2. Standards for education and training which provides a framework for the education nurses and midwives are required to undertake.

The consultation on these changes is open until 12^th September and responses are invited, including via a survey available on the NMC website

https://www.nmc.org.uk/education/education-consultation/background/

Standards for Proficiency and Mental Health Nursing

The draft standards of proficiency outline the minimum standards that individuals are required to meet to join the register as a Nurse.  In order to meet these standards, educators and practitioners will be enabling students to develop the skills, knowledge and values to deliver high quality person centred care.  The draft proficiencies are orientated towards outcomes and organised under the following headings;

• Be an Accountable Professional
• Promote Health
• Assess Needs and Plan Care
• Provide and Evaluate Care
• Lead Nurse Care and Work in Teams
• Improve Safety and Quality of Care
• Co-ordinate Care

Unlike previous educational standards, the proficiency statements apply across all fields of nursing practice and don’t differentiate between the child, adult, learning disabilities or mental health field. The NMC consider that this will enable all registered nurses to meet the fundamental needs of people with a range of conditions, physical, cognitive and mental health difficulties, whilst facilitating the provision of care to those with complex needs in each field of practice.  The proficiency statements are supplemented by two annexes:

 A) Communication and relationship management skills

 B) Nursing procedures which outline the skills (within these areas) that nurses require to meet the proficiencies. The annexes are also not separated into fields, although they do recognise that some skills may be required in more depth by mental health nurses.

https://www.nmc.org.uk/globalassets/sitedocuments/edcons/ec7-draft-standards-of-proficiency-for-registered-nurses.pdf

Standards for Education and Training

The proposals outline the standards that education and practice placement providers will need to meet in order to run NMC approved education programmes. Five pillars are presented that set out the required standards.

• Learning Culture
• Educational Governance and Quality
• Student Learning andEmpowerment
• Educators and Assessors
• Curricula and Assessment

The education standards are far ranging but some of the significant changes include;

• Mentor role to be replaced by a practice supervisor, practice assessor and academic assessor.  There is capacity for flexibility in how this model is developed
• Increased simulation hours

Access the draft standards here

https://www.nmc.org.uk/globalassets/sitedocuments/edcons/ec4-draft-education-framework--standards-for-education-and-training.pdf

Mental Health Nurse Academics UK

Mental health academics UK was formed in 2003 and represents more than 60 Higher Education Institutions engaged in Mental Health Nursing Education, Research and Policy Development.

In its position paper on the future of mental health nursing, Mental Health Academics UK, outlined a clear case for retaining fields at pre-registration level:

You can read the position paper here

https://mhnauk.wordpress.com/position-papers/

Mental Health, Child, Adult and Learning Disabilities Nursing remain, for now, in the draft standards as separate pre-registration nursing specialisms. However, the shared proficiency statements and skills annexe represent a shift towards reducing the distinctive nature of each nursing field as there is limited reflection of the specialist areas of knowledge, skills and values that are core to each profession. 

Mental Health Academics UK met at London South Bank University in June 2017 and a key agenda item was to begin a discussion on the implications of the draft new education standards and proficiencies, for developing mental health nurses able to work alongside people experiencing mental health difficulties and their families to facilitate recovery.    

 The group recognised the importance of all nurses being able to provide fundamental care that promotes physical and mental wellbeing, which is a position that underpins the draft proficiencies. However, concerns were shared that the nursing procedures outlined in the annexe are dominated by the requirements of hospital based physical healthcare with limited consideration of what high level skills look like for mental health nurses.  The aspiration of parity of esteem is not yet apparent. The inclusion of a small range of mental health orientated communication skills is too limited to ensure graduate mental health nurses are equipped to meet the needs of people we work with.

 Chair of the MHNAUK  Professor Steven Pryjmachuk , @MHNProfSteven on Twitter, summarised these arguments for the Nursing Times https://www.nursingtimes.net/opinion/expert-opinion/revised-education-standards-lack-parity-for-mental-health/7018764.article , whilst vice chair Ben Hannigan, @benhannigan on twitter,  offers further reflections on the implications for mental health nursing and education via his blog https://benhannigan.com/

Lead for MHNAUK’s education standing group, Anne Felton, has invited members representing mental health academic teams across the UK to share their views about the NMC’s educations proposals to inform the groups formal response for September.  Many teams are also submitting their own feedback to the NMC.

About the Twitter Chat

@MHNAUK and @WeMHNurses have now joined forces to gather the views of the mental health nursing profession, people with lived experience of mental distress, their families and students on the draft education standards currently out for consultation, so we can ensure that the voice of Mental Health Nurses as well as people with lived experience of mental health can contribute to the final standards.  

We will be running a chat on Thursday 27th July at 8.00 pm – 9.00 p.m on our regular hashtag #Wemhns .

Please join us for a twitter discussion on this important topic. As with all our chats, this will be a public conversation and everyone is welcome to participate. We are particularly interested in your views on whether the draft proposals adequately reflect the values, skills and knowledge required for mental health nursing in contemporary health services and whether the educational standards provide a clear workable framework to enable the development of these attributes.

This pre chat has been put together by @anne_feltonmh and  @VanessaLGarrity who will also be facilitating the chat.