Preceptorship

Preceptorship, a word that is being heard more and more within the nursing profession, but what is it? How does it help the student nurse? How can we, as the student nurse, have a say in what we want as a preceptee? Since it's conception into nursing nearly 20 years ago, it appears, through conversations with nurses and newly qualified nurses, that the foundations of preceptorship are not the same across the different trusts.

CapitalNurse together with Health Education England (2018) define preceptorship as a time of transition phase for newly qualified nurses. This is a way of building confidence in the newly qualified nurse, having a “go to” person, eased into a part of the nursing family.

Different areas require different needs from the preceptorship program, depending on where the newly qualified nurse will be working, but the foundation needs to be the same across all trusts to ensure that newly qualified nurse are receiving equal support across the board.

CapitalNurse are at the forefront of setting out guidelines for trusts to adhere to which ensures newly qualified nurses are receiving the preceptorship that is required to give the support needed for those first six to twelve months after receiving the pin.

You may be wondering why a second-year student nurse is concerned about preceptorship and what’s going to happen once qualified when there are still placements to get through and assignments and exams to sit.

We all need to be thinking about what happens after university. We are working towards our pin, towards that first job out of university and the support that we will receive on that first job will set us up for our future career. We need to be confident in discussing with our preceptor what we want out of the relationship, how they can support us and how we want to grow. These are discussions that need to start now, between each other, in your personal tutor meetings and fed back to Capital Nurse so that these views can be fed forward.

We are the future of nursing, we are moulding our future. We shouldn’t just be thinking of us and our future, but for the future of all student nurses.

You can find more information about the CapitalNurse preceptorship here.

Reference

Health Education England. (2018). Preceptorship. [online] Available at: https://www.hee.nhs.uk/our-work/capitalnurse/workstreams/preceptorship [Accessed 12 Dec. 2018].