Our preceptorship team has successfully achieved the National Preceptorship Quality Mark for nursing.
Meeting the standard to achieve the Quality Mark demonstrates the commitment to support and develop our newly qualified nurses and all of our registered practitioners during their first year at North Bristol NHS Trust (NBT).
Our preceptorship programme was redesigned approximately 18 months ago and the first cohort of staff since the refresh have just completed the programme.
A celebration was held to mark the end of their preceptorship and the nurses and allied health professionals (AHPs) were presented with certificates.
The preceptorship programme is a 12-month structured programme for all newly qualified registered practitioners – nurses, nursing associates, return to practice and AHPs – although this Quality Mark is awarded for the nursing element and we will now apply for the other areas in the future. There is also a preceptorship programme for our newly qualified midwives.
The programme provides support from staff joining the Trust having been a student, through to becoming an autonomous practitioner, and is designed to give them the confidence and competence to move forward in their career.
It involves dedicated study days looking at different topics such as patient safety and quality improvement, leadership, clinical skills and everyone on the programme has a named person who supports them during their transition.
While the focus of the preceptorship programme is transitional support, at the end there is a chance to look to the future and where staff might want to progress in their careers and the development opportunities they might want to pursue.
Clinical Preceptorship Lead, Naureen Samnani, said that when applying for the National Preceptorship Quality Mark there was the option of applying for a lower or higher level, but the team was determined to “go for the gold standard”.
“We are extremely delighted to have achieved this,” she said.
“This has been about the Preceptorship Team working with support from the wider Clinical Education Team and other areas.”