Sign-off Mentors Research Articles

Additional options for achieving sign-off mentor criteria

Professor Alan Glasper examines the Nursing and Midwifery Council's new criteria providing new options for nursing mentors who wish to achieve sign-off status.

A mentor portfolio model for ensuring fitness for practice

The revised Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) (2008) Standards to Support Learning and Assessment in Practice aim to support mentors in ensuring that new registrants are fit for practice. The standards also include criteria for sign-off mentors' competencies, which become mandatory this year. This article describes how 'mentor portfolios' can support mentors and help sign-off mentors meet the NMC criteria, and can be linked to the NHS knowledge and skills framework to enhance annual appraisals.

Implementation and sustainability of the nursing and midwifery standards for mentoring in the UK

There is growing emphasis on developing sounder processes for ensuring that nursing and midwifery students are appropriately supported and assessed in practice settings, so that they are fit to practice at the point of registration. To support this, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) in 2006, introduced new mandatory standards for practice education (NMC, 2006). The standards outline mentor responsibility for developing and ensuring the practice competence of students and provide a more defined statement regarding accountability for the decisions that lead to entry to the professional register (NMC, 2006, p. 6). Integral to the standards is the creation of a new role final placement mentors; the 'Sign-off' mentor. The concept of the 'Sign-off' mentor is new and the arrangements for implementing a sustainable approach will be challenging for placement providers. Equally challenging for universities, is the development of a framework that can support, monitor and provide evidence, that regulatory requirements have been met. This paper outlines the complexities associated with maintaining mentor competence, discusses some of the challenges for Sign-off mentors and is intended to contribute to the general discussion about specific aspects of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) standards and their sustainability in practice.

Supporting mentors in clinical practice

Students who entered training as of September 2007 are required to have a 'sign-off mentor' in their final clinical placement to register with the Nursing and Midwifery Council. The sign-off mentor status is mandatory for confirming that, on completion of the final clinical placement, the student has met all the requirements of the pre-registration clinical assessment criteria and can register as a qualified nurse. This article describes the role of the clinical teacher in preparing and supporting mentors in one area of Wales.