Using specialist nurse mentors to boost placement capacity.

Mentors play a pivotal role in assessing and supporting nursing students. This can be rewarding but stressful. With increasing numbers of students requiring clinical placements, ward mentors are becoming overloaded. This article examines a new method of supporting senior nursing students in placement while alleviating the pressures on overworked mentors. It recommends the use of specialist nurses to support pre-registration students through a structured learning pathway. The scheme also opens up new areas for clinical allocations. This is a summary: the full paper can be accessed at nursingtimes.net