There’s no denying that the recent Covid-19 pandemic has shone a spotlight on the importance and value of the National Health Service (NHS) and, in particular, the life-saving work carried out by medical and nursing professionals.
One area where our mission ‘to help every student reach their full potential’ and succeed in their academic studies is particularly pertinent is in the field of nursing. Historically, the number of student nurses who leave their studies without qualifying (i.e. who drop out of university) is particularly high. A report from The Health Foundation in 2019 put the figure at 24%. This figure is of concern to HEI providers of nursing education not least of all because of the moral contract they enter into with students who enrol at university with the intent to obtain a professionally recognised qualification.
Using our innovative Data Foundry process, we’ve already proven the potential value to be realised through the implementation of StREAM within Nursing. Working with Nursing faculties in three universities across England, the Data Foundry research exercise identified over 90% of withdrawn students in the high-risk category across all three universities. The research also identified that those students spent a significant number of days in that ‘at-risk’ category prior to withdrawal. Understanding the importance of this insight enables colleagues working in student support within higher education institutions – from personal tutors through to central support teams – to put appropriate support mechanisms in place to help address issues that would otherwise escalate to the point where a student chooses to withdraw.
Despite successful examples of how engagement data is impacting support for student nurses, we recognise that there is still plenty of opportunity to learn more about the nuances of student engagement in nursing courses and to find new and more effective practices. One area of interest is the challenges faced by those involved in nurse education is the fact that students are expected to undertake 2,300 placement hours across the duration of their studies. In practice, this equates to about half of their time in clinical practice under the watchful eye of placement mentors and supervisors as they gain first-hand experience of the realities of being a nursing professional. We will further develop our experience in using data feeds from standard University systems to understand student engagement in the academic sphere by working closely with existing StREAM users to learn more about how we can better incorporate placement activity.
Working collaboratively with our clients, we have also created a new nursing Community of Practice to bring together colleagues from across our nursing client base to share experiences in managing student nurse retention and to explore better ways to understand specific issues that nursing can bring. Dr Rachel Maxwell, Programme Manager at Solutionpath for the HEE project and Chair of the Community, explains ‘the vision for the community is to strengthen relationships between clients using StREAM to obtain deeper insights into the world of nursing, sharing success stories between institutions and strengthening members’ understanding of the challenges faced by the nurses of tomorrow.
In seeking to support students to identify those factors that are impacting on their ability to engage fully with their studies, not only is the aim to manage retention during their studies but to develop individual agency and habits that nursing graduates can take with them into the workplace. Ultimately, keeping those nurses already in practice should also help address the current demand for qualified nurses by reducing the number of nurses leaving the profession’.
The Community of Practice which is supported by Health Education England (HEE) aims to support pre-registration nurse attrition by helping to minimise students leaving nursing courses through technology, community and best practice. We encourage all colleagues using StREAM in nursing courses to join. Initiatives like these are a positive step in driving more innovation and best practice that will ultimately help universities to provide great individualised learning and give students the best possible chance to succeed and progress into successful nursing careers.
If you are interested in how StREAM can support your Nursing students, please get in touch by emailing nursing@solutionpath.co.uk.
Author – Dr Rachel Maxwell, Community Manager at Solutionpath There’s no denying that the recent Covid-19 pandemic has shone a spotlight on the importance and value of the National Health Service (NHS) and, in particular, the life-saving work carried out by medical and nursing professionals. One area where our mission ‘to help every student reach their full potential’ and […]
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