Pre-registration nurse education: building the foundations of a nursing career and profession?

Abstract

All nursing careers are built on the foundation of one’s pre registration nurse education: it is from these foundations that student nurses (and later Registered Nurses) develop their understanding of what it is to be a nurse and to be part of the nursing profession. These foundations lead to aspirations about where careers in nursing may lead (e.g. Barton and le May, 2012) and these, in turn, influence the development of the profession of nursing. As a result of the introduction of the latest Standards for Pre-registration Nurse Education by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) (2010), all pre-registration nurse education programmes in the United Kingdom, like many others across the world, will have to be at degree level from 2013. There have been many differing views expressed in reaction to this requirement, at one end of the continuum is the view that this is nothing new as degree level courses in nursing have existed in the United Kingdom and internationally for over 30 years, indeed some post-graduate courses exist within pre registration nurse education – a point of view explored by Kathryn Jones in her editorial on this topic. At the other end of the continuum, is the somewhat spurious notion that a move to degree level preparation for nurses will distract them, during their studies and once qualified, from their core role of competently nursing people. Much media attention, public debate and professional re-focussing activities – e.g. the Willis commission on nurse education (Education Commission, 2012) and no doubt the Nursing and Care Quality Forum (Department of Health, 2012) – has become entwined with this change, so much so that one could be forgiven for thinking that obtaining graduate status for nurses is the only important change introduced within the new standards. This, of course, is not the case – the NMC standards show all of us involved in educating nurses, be that in the lecture room, the simulation suite or at the patient’s side, the key components of this endeavour required to build a 21st century workforce. The standards show prospective nurses what contemporary nursing involves, they show practising nurses areas for updating