Priorities for the professional development of registered nurses in nursing homes: a Delphi study

Abstract

Objective: To establish a consensus on the care and professional development needs of registered nurses employed by UK care homes Design: Two stage, online modified Delphi study Setting and participants: A panel (n=352) of individuals with experience, expertise or interest in care home nursing: (i) care home nurses and managers;(ii) community healthcare professionals (including general practitioners, geriatricians, specialist and district nurses); and (iii) nurse educators in higher education.Results: Registered nurses employed by nursing homes require particular skills, knowledge, competence and experience to provide high quality care for older residents. The most important responsibilities for the nursing home nurse were: promoting dignity, personhood and wellbeing, ensuring resident safety and enhancing quality of life. Continuing professional development priorities included personal care, dementia care and managing long-term conditions. The main barrier to professional development was staff shortages. Nursing degree programmes were perceived as inadequately preparing nurses for a nursing home role. Nursing homes could improve by providing supportive learning opportunities for students and fostering challenging and rewarding careers for newly registered nurses. Conclusion:If nurses employed by nursing homes are not fit for purpose, the consequences for the wider health and social care system are significant. Nursing homes, the NHS, educational and local authorities need to work together to provide challenging and rewarding career paths for registered nurses and 3 evaluate them. Without well-trained, motivated staff, a high quality care sector will remain merely an aspiration. Word count 2354

Challenges in municipality healthcare services—The nurse leaders' perspective

“…To attract young applicants to the municipality is greatly a matter of how the working conditions correspond to the applicants' expectations and also how municipal health care is presented during the nurse education (Bakkeli, Sterri, & Moland, 2016;Prentice & Black, 2007). Recruiting and retaining nurses is challenging, and it is disquieting that nurses leave their jobs in the municipalities (Cooper et al, 2017). It is likely that there is a relationship between high turnover rates and nurses' perceptions of low competency in long-term care (Stanyon, Goldberg, Astle, Griffiths, & Gordon, 2017).…”

A national study of nursing homes as learning environments according to undergraduate nursing student’s perspective

“…A renewed interest regarding NHs as clinical learning environments for nursing students has been documented in the past 15 years at both the national (Destrebecq, ) and at the international levels (Cooper et al, ; Kruger et al, ; Lane & Hirst, ; Lea et al, ; Moquin et al, ; Nolet et al, ; Ryan et al, ) after being stigmatised for a long time as a poor setting with a lack of learning opportunities and supervision. This reversed trend towards considering a NH as a worthy clinical placement is mainly associated with the increasing awareness regarding the amount of residents living in NH that will require an increase of about 40% in the nursing staff by 2030 (Gomez‐Batiste et al, ; Kojima, ), but also as a reaction to the lack of placements at the hospital level (Destrebecq, ).…”

“…With the intent of ensuring the expected clinical competences as well as encouraging newly graduates to consider pursuing careers in gerontology nursing, several nursing programmes around the world have designed and developed structured clinical learning experiences in NHs. Several examples can be found in Australia (e.g., Lea et al, 2015;Ryan et al, 2018), Canada (e.g., Moquin, Seneviratne, & Venturato, 2018), USA (e.g., Nolet et al, 2015) and Europe (e.g., Cooper et al, 2017;Nolet et al, 2015); moreover, also transnational projects have been documented (e.g., US/Finland, Kruger et al, 2017). Differently, in the Italian context, only recently long-term facilities have been started to be considered as a setting where clinical placements can be offered during nursing education (Canzan et al, 2017).…”

The Effect of Hands-on Practice on the Skills Proficiency of Nursing Home Nurses

“…DONs and nursing home administrators should develop partnerships or collaborate with local schools of nursing to engage the expertise of nurse educators, as has been recommended by other researchers (Bourbonniere & Strumpf, 2008;Cooper et al, 2016;Dyck & Kim, 2018;Fairchild et al, 2013;Murray, 2013). Together they could collaborate to develop skills review programs that are relevant to the needs of the nurses and their residents using the most current evidence-based practice.…”