Maria Ponto & Julia Gale
Kingston University and St. George’s University of London, UK
Title: Leadership in nursing education
Biography
Biography: Maria Ponto & Julia Gale
Abstract
This presentation will discuss new approaches to healthcare education which are being offered at Kingston University. These new approaches are offered in response to the changing healthcare needs and focus on clinical leadership and apprenticeships. Clinical leadership is considered to be vital for an effective provision of the modern healthcare therefore healthcare professionals should be well prepared for this role. In order to prepare the students for their future roles, the educational leaders must be conversant with the needs of the current healthcare provision. In the last 25 years the UK education of nurses moved from being hospital based to university but now different models of education are being considered such as work based learning (WBL) and apprenticeship. WBL model acknowledges the learning that takes place in the workplace which often centres on projects or personal development plans. The lecturers help students identify the learning outcomes for WBL projects as well as activities needed to achieve the learning outcomes. Such student involvement promotes greater understanding of the learning process and encourages responsibility for own education. The use of the apprenticeship model in healthcare is new and essentially provides opportunities for health care assistants (HCA’s) to be released to university for one day a week to learn academic aspects of nursing, whilst working in the healthcare setting. The apprenticeship programme will help HCA’s to gain promotion and extend their nursing role. This in turn will help towards the cover of healthcare provision at times of acute nurse shortage in UK.