Biography
Biography: Ilana Pressick
Abstract
Newly qualified nurses feel unprepared for practice and lack confidence in their own abilities according to our literature review. Birmingham City University with the support of Birmingham Children’s Hospital have set up a new innovative education programme to address this. This education programme brings theory to the students whilst they are out on placement addressing issues that the literature review has bought to light. The programme was carefully aligned against their nursing programme. Whilst learning outcomes were set for sessions they were fluent in adapting to the learning needs of the students.
Qualitative research was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of this new educational programme, inform future practice and validate the programme. Initial findings indicate that the programme is very effective in addressing some of the gaps identified in our original literature review. It empowered students to confidently take knowledge and consciously apply to practice but also to recognise the theory they apply.
Strong research themes emerging as reported by student are:
- An increase in confidence not only in regard to clinical skills such as medicine management but also in regard to non-technical skills like communication and self-awareness.
- Emotional support from staff and an increase in peer support and identification.
- That the success to their learning whilst out on placement was due to the adaptability of sessions to meet their learning needs.
The benefits of this programme have been endorsed by the research, resulting in the programme expanding and implementation across different hospital sites are currently being planned. Most importantly, this initiative seems to make a real difference to our students and in turn will hopefully have a positive impact on the way in which they care for children and their families.