Professor Carol Curran, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Life and Health Sciences welcomed the launch of the standards in Northern Ireland on behalf of the Council of Deans of Heath. She acknowledged the appropriateness of the new standards in an ever-changing healthcare landscape, highlighting the importance of future-proofing the education of nurses and midwives, in partnership with clinical providers, in order that nurses and midwives can continue to provide high standards of care.
In collaboration with Professor Owen Barr, Professor of Nursing and Intellectual Disabilities at Ulster University and partners in Universities across the United Kingdom, a Thought Leadership Group was developed to represent the different fields of nursing to develop new standards and a framework. The Group listened to the views of over 1,000 patients, healthcare professionals, educators and employers across the UK and locally held events in Belfast and Derry-Londonderry with health experts from across Northern Ireland.
Collectively, the following standards were developed and finalised by the Nursing and Midwifery Council to ensure that nurses and midwives are equipped with the skills and knowledge they need to practise at the point of registration and in the future.
New NMC standards
1 Standards framework for nursing and midwifery education
1.1 These are the education and training standards that educational bodies approved by the NMC must meet when delivering approved education programmes.
2 Standards for student supervision and assessment
2.1 These standards set out how students are supported and assessed in theory and in practice.
3 Standards for pre-registration nursing programmes
3.1 These are the education and training standards that pre-registration nursing programmes must meet.
4 Future nurse: standards of proficiency for registered nurses
4.1 These set out the knowledge and skills that nurses must have when joining our register.
Professor Carol Curran, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Life and Health Sciences commented;
“We’ve been at the forefront of delivering excellence through nursing teaching and research programmes for over four decades and we continually strive to ensure our graduates are equipped to appropriately meet the needs of patients and their families. Vital to the implementation of the future nursing standards was the collaborative approach taken to develop the modern standards and framework. The new standards provide an innovative approach to the university education of nurses and midwives to ensure they have the skills and knowledge to deliver world class care to patients across Northern Ireland and around the world.”