Practice Nurse Online: our initiative to help practice nurses prepare for revalidation

We have redeveloped our website to provide you with an online resource to help you prepare for appraisal and revalidation, using our Curriculum – a collection of educational modules – and our extensive archive of expert articles, all available via an easier-to-search and user-friendly interface. All our content is designed to help you meet your continuing professional development needs and to provide learning support in areas where you need it.

You will find

• Improved navigation
• Clearer, fresher design
• Privileged access for subscribers

Easily locate articles of interest via the drop down menus, which offer detailed topic descriptors to help you find just what you are looking for, or click on the links by issue date to read the full text article, or use the search function.

Click on the Curriculum showcase icons to take you to CPD modules arranged to reflect the subject headings of the RCGP General Practice Foundation’s framework of General Practice Nurse Competencies.

We have also completely revised and updated the clinical entries of the A to Z Handbook for Nurses in General Practice, in line with current guidelines and with up-to-date links to external resources and relevant Practice Nurse articles.

Access to home page, Clinical A –Z, featured article and sample questions from Curriculum CPD modules is ‘free to air’. Subscribers have full access to all Curriculum content and our extensive collection of clinical articles.

Click, or locate the article you want via the menu tabs, drop down menus or the search function.

Our archived articles are divided into collections:

• Essentials
• Prescribing Nurse
• Advanced Practice

THE COMPETENCY FRAMEWORK – WHAT IS IT?

The RCGP General Practice Foundation framework of General Practice Nurses Competencies addresses the common core competencies and the wider range of skills, knowledge and behaviours that a nurse needs in order to be a fully proficient practice nurse. They aim to cover everything expected of the practice nurse, whether novice or expert, at the beginning of their career or well established as a primary care practitioner.

All practice nurses, irrespective of their experience, should ensure they achieve and maintain minimum standards of competency across all areas of the generalist role.

To help achieve this fundamental objective, in 2012 the RCGP General Practice Foundation developed a competency framework, aligned with the Knowledge and Skills Framework of the NHS, which covers the skills and knowledge that practice nurses should be able to demonstrate or aspire to, from the newest entrant to the experienced expert with specialist proficiency.

How the framework can be used

• It provides a detailed description of the role of the practice nurse
• It is designed as a self-assessment tool to help nurses recognise their current level of competence and identify specific areas for further development
• It provides a tool to review and demonstrate progress
• It can form the foundation of a portfolio of continuing professional development
• It can be used to inform assessment of the nurse’s practice, as part of annual appraisal and as preparation for NMC revalidation from 2015.

The Framework is divided into subject areas ranging from communication with patients and within teams, to the care of patients with long-term conditions. However, it does not provide any means of acquiring the necessary knowledge to underpin the skills and competencies identified in the framework.

INTRODUCING THE PRACTICE NURSE CURRICULUM

Practice Nurse has undertaken a year-long project to develop a knowledge support system to reflect and complement the standards identified by the RCGP as essential to be a fully proficient practice nurse.

Our online continuing professional education modules have been developed in association with education experts Education for Health and cover the topics included in the RCGP Framework.

Each module comprises an introduction, recommendations for essential background reading, links to relevant and informative peer-reviewed articles published in Practice Nurse, and a set of multiple-choice questions to enable you to assess your current knowledge and identify areas requiring further study.

Each module also features set activities to encourage reflection, to demonstrate understanding and to help you to put your knowledge into practice, plus recommendations for further reading, both external and from our own extensive archive.

In addition, modules signpost the practice nurse to relevant Education for Health training, ranging from e-learning and one-day workshops to degree courses.

Completion of a module, including undertaking the further reading and some or all of the activities will constitute an hour of CPD activity which can be used in your portfolio:

• To demonstrate continuing professional development
• As evidence of CPD for annual appraisal and revalidation

To complete your online CPD

1 Select a module and add it to ‘My Dashboard’

2 Answer the self assessment questions

3 Complete the further reading assignments and suggested activities, and add your reflection notes in the ‘Record my thoughts’ facility

4 Download your certificate as confirmation of completion of the module

To date we have developed 34 modules, initially focussing on clinical topics. Further modules will be added in line with the RCGP framework over the coming months.

Curriculum subjects are identified by an icon indicating the corresponding RCGP framework cagtegory.

PREPARING FOR APPRAISAL AND REVALIDATION

The Nursing and Midwifery Council’s plans are well in hand for the introduction of professional revalidation for all nurses from the end of 2015. Although some of the detail has yet to be confirmed, the NMC’s chosen model will require registered nurses to demonstrate that they remain fit to practise on a regular basis – every three years – when they renew their registration.

Revalidation will require a third party to confirm that the nurse is complying with the revised Code of practice, and that the nurse has reflected on feedback – including complaints – from patients, service users, carers and colleagues to improve the services that they provide.

As now, when the nurse renews his or her registration, they will need to declare that they have practised for 450 hours over the 3 years, and have undertaken continuing professional development. Suitable CPD activities are expected to include structured reading, e-learning and self-assessment.

The main way of acquiring third party confirmation of continuing fitness to practise – and of demonstrating CPD – is to undertake formal appraisal each year. Collecting the evidence of learning activities, and of meeting professional development objectives agreed with the practice each year forms a portfolio, which can be used to support revalidation. If you missed Jenny Greenfield’s article, Why every practice nurse should have an annual appraisal, (Practice Nurse, 19 September 2014;44(9):32-36) click here to read it now.

It would be impractical to examine the portfolios of each and every registrant, but the NMC will select nurses at random to audit the validity of the information provided for revalidation.

While this system may sound suspiciously close to the discredited audits of PREP, we have to assume that in the current climate, the NMC will carry out revalidation audits, and that we should be adequately prepared. We hope our new website can help you do just that.