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Recruitment rules ‘will not improve care’ By Erin Dean NEW RULES on recruiting nursing students with the right caring values will not help prevent a repeat of appalling care like that uncovered at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, according to university leaders. Health Education England (HEE) announced in October that face-to-face interviews would be carried out with every potential nursing student to ensure that they have the right compassionate values. Nursing schools will have to use the HEE’s national values-based recruitment framework when attracting and recruiting students from April next year. But the Council of Deans of Health (CoDH) said most universities already use values-based recruitment to ensure they pick the right people for the profession. The framework, which should also be used by NHS employers to recruit

On the move CECILIA ANIM has been elected president and Rod Thomson deputy president of the RCN. Both will take up office on January 1 and will serve for two years. Ms Anim becomes the first nurse from a minority ethnic background to be elected to the college’s highest office. A sexual health nurse with expertise in the menopause, she works in Camden, London. Professor Thomson is director of public health for Shropshire. MANDIE SUNDERLAND is to be director of nursing and midwifery at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH). She is currently chief nurse at Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust and was previously chief nurse at Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust, Birmingham. Ms Sunderland will join NUH in February. She replaces Jenny Leggott, who retired from the NHS in October after 40 years’ service. 6

December 2014 | Volume 21 | Number 8

Values-based interviews are already in use, and real issues are being ignored, say university leaders staff, sets out rules on assessing whether applicants share the values of the NHS constitution including respect and dignity, compassion, commitment to quality and safety, and improving lives. The HEE framework has been drawn up following the failings of compassion and dignity found by inquiries into poor care at Stafford Hospital. However, CoDH chair and dean of health sciences at the University of Southampton Dame Jessica Corner said that an HEE survey revealed that 96% of pre-registration nursing courses already use values in their selection of potential students, and in most cases candidates for health courses are invited to a face-to-face selection process.

Employers to take part in dry run for NMC revalidation SIX EMPLOYERS have been chosen to pilot the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) revalidation system, which will be used from December 2015 to confirm nurses’ fitness to remain on the register. The system will be tested between April and June next year at Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, in London, Mersey Care NHS Trust, NHS Tayside, and Western Health and Social Care Trust, based in Derry/Londonderry. Public Health England will also take part. Under revalidation, which will replace post-registration education and practice, nurses will be expected to show how they meet the requirements of the NMC code of conduct. Registrants will need to prove they have undertaken 40 hours of continuing professional development every three years, 20 hours of which need to include participation in in-house training or shadowing senior colleagues, for example.

‘This is a standardised approach from HEE, but we do not think it will lead to a dramatic change,’ Professor Corner said. ‘There is no evidence that recent graduates are a cause for concern in relation to their values, and no evidence that graduates were the source of any problems at Mid Staffs. ‘This is a knee-jerk reaction that does not focus on where the real problem lies,’ she added. ‘There are more important areas that should be focused on, such as the culture of the environment where care is given and in which students learn when they are on practice.’ The framework is at hee.nhs.uk/ work-programmes/values-based-recruitment

The NMC said the pilot would be used to assess the preparedness of UK nurse employers to implement the revalidation system. Chief nursing officer for England Jane Cummings said: ‘These pilots will help to develop a sophisticated process of revalidation to ensure every nurse and midwife remains fit to practise.’

Chaplaincy placements will highlight role of patient spirituality UNIVERSITY OF Hull nursing students are undertaking placements with chaplains to find out more about the importance of patient spirituality. Lead chaplain for Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust, the Rev Charles Thody, is working with chaplains at Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust to provide placements and run lectures and tutorials. ‘Spiritual care is a huge element of palliative and end of life care,’ he said. See opinion, page 12 NURSING MANAGEMENT

Nursing Management 2014.21:6-6. Downloaded from journals.rcni.com by FLINDERS UNIVERSITY on 12/08/15. For personal use only.

Recruitment rules 'will not improve care'.

NEW RULES on recruiting nursing students with the right caring values will not help prevent a repeat of appalling care like that uncovered at Mid Staf...
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