Implications for operationalising the new education standards for nursing

Registrants and higher education institutions (HEIs) were recently invited to take part in the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) consultation regarding its potential new standards for pre-registration nursing education. The consultation set out fresh standards for pre-registration nursing, together with an education framework that underpins the associated theory and practice. While these documents do not contain the final standards (NMC Council is set to approve them in spring 2018), they offer a glimpse of what the newly registered nurse should know and be able to do at the point of registration in order to practise safely and effectively and continue to develop their expertise. The draft proficiency standards are referred to in the document as being ‘ambitious in setting out the enhanced knowledge and skills that people can expect from nurses in the future’. It is interesting to look at the document in terms of practice learning, particularly in relation to by whom and how student nurses will be supervised and assessed in clinical practice and what the educational requirement should be. In this column, we offer some personal perspectives about the potential impact of these new standards in practice