Service User/Carers contribution to Value Based Recruitment in a Pre-registration Adult Nursing Programme.

Abstract

Within the UK, the patients’ voice is becoming more powerful politically, due to the recognition of the importance of their voice in service development and delivery (Department of Health (DoH) 2008). This commitment towards hearing individual voices has been further endorsed in the National Health Service (NHS) Constitution (DoH 2009), and Liberating the NHS (DoH 2010). All of these reports highlight the need for the NHS to utilise the voices of its users in assessing the quality of the care provided, recognising that individuals are best placed to judge their experiences. This focus on engagement with service users has transcended into nurse preparatory programmes. Indeed the regulatory body for nursing in the UK (Nursing Midwifery Council NMC) highlight one of its core standards for education is that Higher Education Institutions (HEI’s) clearly demonstrate how service users/carers contribute to both programme design and delivery (NMC 2010). A further consideration within the UK nurse education is an increased focus on value based recruitment. A re-focus on values within the NHS was one of the areas identified in the Francis Report (2013). In 2014, Health Education England (HEE) published their Value Based Recruitment Framework in which they articulate how future recruitment of healthcare practitioners will focus on how applicants’ individual values and behaviours align with the core values of the NHS Constitution (DoH 2009). HEIs are expected to comply with the guidance published from HEE as 50% student nurse programmes are based in healthcare settings. As part of reviewing our admissions process in light of the requirements of values based recruitment we decided we would like to include service users/carers more formally into our recruitment process. We have a long established link with service users within the university (coordinated by 2 part time designated staff), which includes engagement in both curriculum development and review, delivery of education as well as assisting us in the past in designing interview questions. In addition, service users and carers have been successfully engaged in social work interviews at the university for a number of years; however the numbers of candidates are very small. We sought inspiration from a study by Rhodes & Nyawata (2011) who evaluated involvement of service users in the recruitment of ninety child health and adult field nursing students and we wondered if we could implement that within our adult student nursing programme which interviews several hundreds of candidates each year. This paper will present our experience of implementing an initiative which enabled service users and carers to formally contribute towards the interviewing of pre-registration adult student nurses. It will explore some of the highlights and the challenges we experienced during the last year. Lastly, it will reflect upon our experience of how service users and carers are a fundamental aspect of value based recruitment. References Department of Health. (2008) High Quality Care for All (Darzi Report). Department of Health. Department of Health. (2009) The NHS Constitution. Department of Health. Department of Health. (2010) Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS. Department of Health. Francis, R. (2013) Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry; Executive Summary. London. Health Education England. (2014) Value Based Recruitment Framework. Available from: http://hee.nhs.uk/wp-content/blogs.dir/321/files/2014/10/VBR-Framework.pdf (accessed 07/02/15) Nursing Midwifery Council. (2010) Standards for Pre-registration Education. London: Nursing Midwifery Council. Rhodes, C., and Nyawata, I. (2011) Service user and carer involvement in student nurse selection: Key stakeholder perspectives. Nurse Education Today, 31, 439-443.