Helena Kelly, Lecturer of Nursing and Community Health at Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU), updates us on recent work involving the QNI/QNIS District Nursing Standards and the students in the PgD Advanced Practice in District Nursing.
In April of this year, our students were asked to undertake a mapping exercise to align the current PgC Advanced Practice in District Nursing programme outcomes to the 2015 QNI/QNIS District Nursing Voluntary standards. This exercise was an authentic opportunity for the Advanced Practice District Nursing students (APDN) to meet some of the programme outcomes, particularly in relation to education and developing practice. The APDN students were then able to reflect and discuss their learning from this activity with their practice teachers and record it within the Practice Learning Plan.
The original PgD Advanced Practice in District Nursing programme outcomes had previously been mapped to the Nursing and Midwifery Council (2001) specialist practice areas, The Department of Health (2010) themes for advanced practice and Nurse Education for Scotland (2007) four pillars of advanced practice. By further integrating the QNI/QNIS voluntary standards, the programme team can ensure that we are providing a programme which is underpinned by the most current and appropriate standards for District Nurse education and practice.
As one APDN student highlighted:
‘The QNI/QNIS standards complimented and overlapped what was already there, but were very useful because they are contemporary’.
The APDN students really embraced the activity commenting that although challenging, it was thought-provoking and beneficial to their learning.
APDN students were asked for feedback from undertaking the activity:
‘I found it a challenging exercise trying to align the QNI/QNIS standards within our portfolio domains. I think this is because there is an overlap between domains anyway; therefore trying to pigeonhole them to one domain is difficult because the boundaries of the outcomes are not in silos, but fluid and can easily be aligned to many of the domains. In particular, leadership, which is the golden thread of our course, no longer seen as a domain in its own right, but laced throughout all our practice.’
Following the activity, results were collated by the programme team and a final draft prepared. This was then sent out to all APDN students and Practice teachers for comment and amendment. The final version will be completed and integrated within the new practice learning plan ready for the next cohort of APDN students beginning in September.
Helena Kelly (Lecturer in Nursing and Community Health Glasgow Caledonian University)
Liz Teiger (PgD Advanced Practice in District Nursing)
Helen Gough (Pathway Leader, PgD Advanced Practice in District Nursing)
GCU can be followed on twitter: @GCUDNS
Programme information: http://www.gcu.ac.uk/study/modules/info/?Module=MMB722901