The creation of a Virtual Locality Placement that enabled student nurses to achieve practice hours during the pandemic.

Abstract

During the emergency period of the Covid-19 pandemic many student nurses were unable to continue their practice placements.  This innovative placement enabled students to practice safely whilst gaining an understanding of the challenges that face individuals, families and groups in their achievement of health and well-being while living with the Covid-19 restrictions.  This virtual placement was a pioneering response that included students from two nursing programmes and across three fields of nursing from all three fields. Students in small groups worked remotely for four weeks to identify and explore a geographical area.   Students completed an assessment and identification of biopsychosocial and environmental stressors impacting the community and presented their findings in a group report. The Community as Partner Model and Windshield Survey were used as frameworks to guide their practice (Anderson and McFarlane, 2015).  The virtual placement supports the aims presented in the NHS long term plan and Public Health England initiatives to support a place -based approach to tackling health inequalities (NHS, 2019).  Standard placement evaluations reported positive student feedback and identified that the experience enabled students to think differently and more holistically about the people they care for.  Academic feedback focused upon both short and long explanation upon student learning as well as learning from their own professional and academic experiences.