The Practice Education Team at NHS Shetland has been shortlisted for an award at this year’s Nursing Times Workforce Awards.
The Practice Education Team at NHS Shetland has been shortlisted for an award at this year’s Nursing Times Workforce Awards. The Nursing Times Workforce Awards recognise and reward the excellent work that is being done by health boards and trusts across the UK. The award category falls into “best workplace learning environment”
Angie Nichols, NHS Shetland Practice Education Lead (Nursing and Midwifery) led the work to increase learning placements in Shetland. She recognised that in many parts of Scotland, due to disruption caused by the pandemic; clinical teams had to limit the number of students they could support. Angie was aware of the shortages of placements nationally so she worked with teams across the hospital and in the community to put in place new learning placements increasing the number available from 15 to 22, so we could accept more students. Thus, helping the national problem of placement shortages and increasing the amount of student nurses exposed to working in a remote and rural setting and increasing the chance they may apply for a job with NHS Shetland at some point.
Angie recognised that staff in remote and rural settings use innovative practice on a day-to-day basis, and support people with a wide variety of conditions and situations where there may be more limited access to specialist services and what a rich learning environment we provide in Shetland as a result of that. Feedback from students showed that we provided excellent learning opportunities and staff were not only knowledgeable, but also approachable and friendly.
Professor Kathleen Carolan, Director of Nursing & Acute Services said: “This is well deserved recognition for the work that Angie and her team have taken forward. For the first time, we have attracted new graduates from Robert Gordon University, who have taken nursing roles because of the work Angie has led to promote opportunities to nurses who do not have connections to the Islands but have taken final placements in Shetland”.
Angie Nichols said: “I have been working in education for a number of years and am passionate about what our staff can offer students, feedback was always positive and with the national shortage of placement capacity, it seemed to be the right time to explore further opportunities. We support students from Robert Gordon University and also train locally through the Open University, our staff really nurture students and seeing them grow into registered members of staff is so rewarding”.
Our next steps will be to continue to support and maintain the quality of our placement experiences. We have also recently recruited to the Open University mental health pre-registration program, so we are currently looking at increasing mental health experiences to enhance these students learning. Our staff are very passionate about growing our own colleagues through the Open University and are keen to support the staff of the future.