Social Care Placements
Become a learning environment
Become a Practice Assessor/Supervisor
Do you want to become a Clinical Learning Environment to train undergraduate learners? It is our ambition that all social care services become Learning Environment’s, and that all learners get to experience working within social care. This enables opportunities to educate the future workforce, recruit new members of staff, contributes to personal development and revalidation and there are tariff payments available.
In Lancashire & South Cumbria we support students from four HEIs including University of Cumbria, University of Central Lancashire, University of Bolton and Edge Hill University. Each Clinical Learning Environment will be audited by the PEF/Project Manager for Placement Development in Regulated Care and it will be highlighted as to whether that placement area can accept Adult, Mental Health or Learning Disability nursing students, or a mixture of these specialities. The PEFs/Project Managers for Placement Development in Regulated Care are able to link in with the HEIs for further support with learners if needed and can help facilitate the organisation of each learner placement.
The placements typically last between 6-12weeks and learners will need to be allocated a Practice Assessor and Practice Supervisor. These are nursing staff who are registered with the NMC. We advise that newly qualified nurses can become Practice Supervisors and qualified nurses with at least 1 years’ experience can become Practice Assessors. There is no need to do a formal qualification anymore. The PEFs/Project Managers for Placement Development in Regulated Care can provide a handbook and a learning link for Registered Nurses to complete an online course to become an Assessor/Supervisor, or the PEFs/Project Managers for Placement Development in Regulated Care can provide a face-to-face session to update the Practice Assessors and Supervisors, if that would be more beneficial.
The PEFs/Project Managers for Placement Development in Regulated Care will be involved in the whole process of setting the placement area up as a Clinical Learning Environment. Within the set-up of the placement the PEFs/Project Managers for Placement Development in Regulated Care also provide support to complete a ‘Placement Development Toolkit’ and an ‘Learning environment Audit’ for the HEIs. A ‘Student toolkit’ is then developed which the learners have access to read and prepare themselves prior to commencement of their placement.
The PEFs/Project Managers for Placement Development in Regulated Care then continue to support both the Practice Assessors/Supervisors and the learners throughout the placement.
The student nurse will apply their knowledge to practice and learn key skills required for registration. Learning in the contextual setting of social care practise will encourage more nurses to work in social care. You will contribute to developing a skilled and effective workforce
What are the benefits for your Nursing Home?
- Student nurses are supernumerary providing an asset to your existing workforce
- Your staff can benefit from training opportunities when working alongside student nurses
- You will receive tariff payments for each student you support
- We will provide placement support throughout the placement process in the form of a placement toolkit
- We will help you to engage in universities
- We will support you in ensuring you have sufficient assessors and supervisors within your learning environment
- You will be able to develop your team through opportunities for staff to engage in critical inquiry and implement evidence-based practice
- You can enable your nurses to evidence continuing professional development, and address the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) Standards
- You will celebrate the success achieved through collaborative working
Every provider who offers support by placing a student nurse within their establishment is entitled to a payment from NHS England, known as a Tariff. They are responsible for paying for placements in line with the Department of Health and Social Care, ‘Education and Training Tariff – Tariff Guidance’, which is updated annually.
You can find the most recent version of this document here:
NHS England North West are required to have a contract in place through which to pay tariff for placements to any placement provider.
In order to offer placements to student nurses a provider must have a contract with NHS England (NHSE). We are here to support you through the whole process so there is no need to worry about the system being too complicated.
We will ensure you have the correct documentation with clear and concise instructions on how to complete it. If you have any queries we are always here to help.
When all the documentation is completed and submitted to NHSE, we will keep track of the progress on your behalf. If there are any delays or problems with the application, we will liaise with NHSE and you to rectify it quickly and with as little disruption to your busy schedule as possible.
Following a placement within your establishment, NHSE aggregates and costs the activity for you. You are then invited to invoice them for the amount calculated. Again, if you have any queries during this process we are here to help.
More information about the contract can be found here
Once you have decided that you would like to offer placements to student nurses within your organisation, you will be visited by one of our PEFs/Project Managers for Placement Development in Regulated Care. They are there to support you throughout the process so please feel free to contact them at any time! The PEF/Project Manager for Placement Development in Regulated Care assigned to your nursing home will visit you and talk you through the process. Your PEF/Project Manager for Placement Development in Regulated Care will complete any required documentation during their visit and will then start the process rolling for you.
There are two parts to the Quality Assurance & Enhancement Process, which will be fully supported by us throughout the process:
The Organisational Audit which focuses on policies/processes to ensure the safety of learners and educational governance arrangements. This will be completed with support from the Higher Education Institution.
The Learning Environment Audit which focuses on quality of placement experience including:
Preparation of staff to provide a quality learning experience
Support and feedback processes
Experience and evidence the learning environment is appropriate for the learner
Safety of the learning environment
Complaints and incident reporting
Available Resources for student
The toolkit will be completed to ensure all the information required to ensure a quality placement for all learners is achieved.
The Placement Development Toolkit will be utilised as a tool to assess and agree manageable student capacity, generic learning opportunities and experiences that can be achieved within your learning environment for Undergraduate Student Nurses and Nursing Associate Trainees.