Globalisation

I'm off to Seattle next week to meet with academics from two universities. It's a real opportunity to compare their healthcare issues and nursing education with what's going on in Scotland and the UK. Having read the document that is proposing the way forward for nursing in the States, it is clear that (while there are some contextual differences) the key issues are the same. The drive for safe, efficient and person-centred care seems to lie at the heart of the debate, as it does here. The shift towards degree education (with an aim of 80% degree output for the States) mirrors the policy shift in the UK. I will be interested to talk to Seattle colleagues about curriculum, selection of students, and the future of healthcare. Interesting times, and a real opportunity to learn something more about international healthcare.

Reflection on curriculum development

With the new NMC standards, we are all embarking on (or have completed) curriculum developments which aim to enhance the education that we offer. We have many drivers - the NMC requirements, service requirements, policy drivers, student experience and feedback...... How we manage all these is a matter of developing approaches to communication that enables all of the stakeholders to meaningfully engage in the discussion and critical debate that enables the development of curricula that will impact positively on practice. My own experience is one where we aim to diminish the boundaries between practice and university learning through the development of great working relationships with our stakeholders. After all, we are all aiming to do the same thing - provide students with an excellent education that will enhance the service delivery both in the short term and in the longer term. The ever-evolving nature of healthcare requires that we produce graduates who can take forward practice innovatively and who can contribute to the evidence-base that will ensure that nursing practice continues to evolve positively.

Getting older.....

Having just had another birthday I started thinking about getting older and where the healthcare system will be when I am in need of it. As an educator I feel that I am in a position to influence the healthcare of the future, but we will have to work together towards a coherent vision for the future. Blogs and other social media are one way to generate ideas and vision - I plan to engage with others in similar educational roles and pursue a national conversation on nursing education and the key issues that excite us.

Public involvement in nursing education

A key challenge in any nursing education provision is meaningful public involvement - in the development of the education, its delivery and in the wider aspects of assessment in practice, selection of students etc. While there does not appear, so far, to be a strong evidence-base for public involvement, it is intuitive to me that service users, carers, and others should be involved in the work that we as educators do to develop practitioners who are fit for purpose and practise. There are many ways in which we can work with the public - through the use of volunteer patients, through forums within the community, through links and networks that feed into the work of education providers..... If we are to educate practitioners who can provide person-centred care, we absolutely must engage with the public as an integral part of the development of our programmes.

Partnerships

I'm back to one of my current key areas of interest  - the partnerships that are forged between service providers and universities. I have re-read an interesting article in Nurse Education Today (Casey, M., 2011. Interorganisational partnership arrangements: A new model for nursing and midwifery education. NET, 31, 304-308) in which the obvious (but very pertinent) assertion is made that the development of nursing education requires support from both clinical and academic partners. Casey points out that the implementation of frameworks for partnership working will facilitate a responsive approach to the development of education for contemporary nursing practice. Her model incorporates context (the purpose of the partnership), environment (internal and external factors and relationships), input (an implementation strategy), processes (e.g. decision-making, conflict management), skills (in the facilitation of collaboration), outcomes (the resulting interactions), and the role of co-ordinator (for the building of strategic alliances) as the core concepts of a framework for partnership. None of these come as any surprise, but what is useful is to see them together within a framework as a basis for taking partnership working forward. I am sure that we all do well in some of the areas - but do we take a strategic and planned approach within a framework of engagement for our partnership working?

Interprofessional education

I am writing a book chapter with a social work colleague on interprofessional working. As I wade through some of the literature (with which I am relatively familiar), I have been interested to see that the arguments and discussion points remain broadly similar to those presented 10 years ago (working in 'silos' is not good for the service user experience, the barriers to IPW are many and varied, the terminology is challenging, etc etc.). In reflecting on this literature, I can't help but think about the interprofessional education that many of us 'provide' within our curricula. At my university, we aim to help students from a wide range of professions consider the processes and structures which enhance interprofessional working, and to consider the potential for positive impact on care. At a national level a Score (Scottish Common Core Curriculum) project completed but never really seemed to get off the ground. At a policy level we are absolutely striving for a unified approach to care. I wonder how best to work with our students across the professions as we move towards achieving this aspiration?

"Being ill is an education.....'

Yesterday's Guardian had an interesting opinion piece by Mike Marqusee (the fuller version of which will be published in the August issue of Red Pepper at http://www.mikemarqusee.com). He was talking about what he has learned through his experience of living with multiple myeloma for the past 5 years. With a focus on independence/dependence, he highlights the delicate balance of attaining independence in a situation where he is (was) dependent on so many things (the advancement of science, the network of people who supported his experience, the social developments that determine the focus of care....). Key within this article for me was the quote, "I'm being kept alive by the contribution of so many currents of labour, thought, struggle, desire, imagination. By the whole Enlightenment tradition, but not only that: by older traditions of care, solidarity, mutuality, of respect for human life and compassion for human suffering." How pleasing that this person's experience reflected these human attributes that are core to caring. Whilst struggling to be autonomous, Marqusee acknowledges the need to be dependent on others in order to achieve independence through support, advocacy and allies. These are attributes for nursing and helping students to achieve their potential in these areas is vital for the continuing development of compassionate care within a highly educated workforce.