An Education Providers Experience of Programme Monitoring

There were contextual challenges when it was first announced that the NMC would be asking a very new organisation (HLSP) to visit and monitor some of the team’s programmes. The structural stability and reputation for success in health visiting (HV), district (DN), school (SN), general practice (GPN) and occupational health nursing (OHN) programmes had changed. Nurse prescribing had also become very popular as the NHS modernisation agenda was driving through demand for extended roles for nurses and thus upskilling courses. By summer 2006 the team had lost three of the eight staff due to promotion or retirement and there were six new staff, most of whom had never participated in an educational quality review before. However, recent QAA experience and HLSP guidance proved invaluable and the team were well supported by school management.

There were some specific challenges in preparing for the review process besides those mentioned above and some changes made to the proposed dates of the review, HLSP reviewers and the specific programmes addressed.

The first major challenge related to the arranged conjoint validation process of the Specialist Community Public Health Nursing (SCPHN) (HV, SN and OHN) which was planned for May 2007. It did not appear to the team that it was an appropriate, economical or efficient process that a review was being undertaken in March when the curriculum would be revalidated in May. The team had to work extremely hard on putting new curriculum document together to send off in January 2007 as well as addressing the requirements for programmes (planned for deletion) by the HLSP review in March.

Secondly, the new award leader went off sick and there were difficulties trying to gather the evidence required for the review of what was a very complicated award. New 2006 NMC standards (emerging new requirements) meant a history of changing module titles/ delivery.

Thirdly, in relation to the chosen visit to a PCT partner (new HV mentorship model) a tripartite action plan had been put into place to rectify NMC standard issues.

The team really “pulled together” in readiness for the monitoring and it was amazing and exciting to see how much energy and spirit the whole team developed in the process. Team meetings clarified filing, organization, visit plans, catering and collation of evidence. Academic staff worked with students and NHS staff to help them understand the process, which promoted relationship growth.

We felt HLSP monitoring went extremely well and we were happy with the result although there were some reservations.

• We have tremendous IT services and our OHN tutor demonstrated our e portfolio activity on the day. This medium is excellent for students who are often quite isolated practitioners and use it for contact. The OHN programme achieved an outstanding grade. The e portfolio medium is implemented in our other programmes but the tutors didn’t have an opportunity to demonstrate it due to the breadth of their visiting schedule.
• HV placement visit to PCT was marked down. Sadly, monitoring appeared to want “perfect” placements rather than placements reflecting reality (even with improvement plans in place).

The impact has been

• Clearer perceptions of HLSP values
• The new team had a golden opportunity to understand professional monitoring and were prepared for validation for new curricula (HV/ OHN) as part of SCPHN in Summer 2007
• Improved NHS partnerships, team experience / team cohesion and developed new world view of educational provision within the team.

Jill Barr, Subject Leader Specialist Practice/ Primary Care,
University of Wolverhampton.

J.Barr@wlv.ac.uk

To read about monitoring from another perspective, click here