Responding to the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s announcement to permanently allow up to 600 hours of clinical placements to take place in simulated settings during nursing training, University Alliance CEO Vanessa Wilson said:
“This announcement by the Nursing and Midwifery Council is both timely and welcome. It recognises how universities are innovating by using simulated facilities and techniques to deliver high-quality nursing training.
Through simulated training, students can practice rare or risky procedures, and everyday skills, in safe but highly realistic environments, before using them on real patients. In doing so, the burden on the NHS is reduced by cutting the number of ‘live’ clinical placement hours that providers need to host students for. To deliver the future healthcare workforce, further support to ensure these facilities and training provision continue to grow in universities is needed.
Since Alliance Universities train approximately 30% of all nurses in England, we are well-placed to be part of the solution to the NHS workforce crisis. The Government and the NHS will need to work strategically with universities and other training providers if we are to meet future workforce needs in terms of training, productivity and retention. We hope to collaborate and play a much more strategic role in workforce planning going forward.”
