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Aim: this article shares findings from a service evaluation exploring the views of patients relating to the specialist sexual function education and information provided following a spinal cord injury. Background: education optimises patients' involvement in their own decision-making and care processes, with the aim of promoting adherence to agreed plans, reducing the risks of post-injury complications, promoting independence and improving quality of life. Sexual function is a well-known quality-of-life indicator and it has been widely documented that it is not well addressed following spinal cord injury. A previous service evaluation exploring education provided to patients with spinal cord injury identified the need for improved provision of sexual function education/information. As a result, weekly 1-hour sessions focused on sexual function for up to three patients of the same sex were held, facilitated by a clinical nurse specialist. The sessions had an open forum structure. They were initially designed to discuss thoughts and feelings around intimacy and sex after a spinal cord injury, but focused on group members' requests. In addition, patients were offered a one-to-one session where the 'mechanics' of sex could be discussed in further detail. Design and methods: a service evaluation used a questionnaire survey to collect data from a purposive convenience sample of spinal cord injury patients. Data were collected between July and September 2018. Participants completed a locally designed paper questionnaire, which included Likert-style questions and space to add free text comments. Descriptive analysis of the data was used. Results: survey results suggest that the newly formed sexual function education session is positively evaluated in terms of usefulness and all attendees to date would recommend this session to other patients. Conclusions and recommendations: following completion of data analysis, findings will inform the further development of sexual function education, with a particular focus on tailoring it to the patient and reducing the stigma around talking about sex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maintaining competence and keeping skills and knowledge in children's orthopaedic nursing alive are problematic in both the UK and Australia. The dearth of dedicated postgraduate courses for this specialty has resulted in an array of unregulated in-house training, nurses' individual educational needs not being met and potential for children with an orthopaedic problem being put at risk of not receiving optimal care. This paper reports on a travel scholarship used to compare and contrast the UK with Australia, which supported an international scoping exercise to identify nurses' beliefs regarding expertise in children's orthopaedic nursing and explore provision for maintaining pertinent knowledge and skills. Potential ways to improve support for nurses in maintaining expertise in this field of practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the UK Government's public consultation into the NHS bursary and the response from the Nursing and Midwifery Council. A public consultation stipulated that the current arrangements for funding, by the State, were not to be considered for discussion. Instead, the consultation only appraised views that would lead to the successful introduction of student finance loans for NHS professional education. Testimonies from nurses, midwives and nursing students expressed concern that the new funding arrangements were unaffordable, dis-incentivising and biased towards the marketisation of student loans in the UK, yet the changes went ahead. The changes to NHS bursary funding resulted from the UK Government's desire for growth in student numbers (and ostensibly not growth in financial figures), and the fact that nursing (and other healthcare) students will become more fiscally indebted, despite society's moral obligation to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to assess the value of accredited leg ulcer education in influencing changes in practice. This is a before and after educational evaluation that adopted a qualitative survey approach of 12 primary care nurses attending the Nurse-Led Assessment and Management of Leg Ulcers accredited CPD module at a London university. The findings revealed that 6 out of the 8 nurses who completed the final interviews were satisfied that all learning outcomes for the module had been met. All of the nurses commented they had changed at least one aspect of practice following the module with the majority stating a number of improvements had been made relating to improved knowledge, practical skills, treatment and patient concordance. The evaluation was limited to a small cohort of primary care nurses and further longitudinal research is required to investigate the effectiveness across multiple cohorts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Pelvic floor muscle exercises positively impact on urinary stress incontinence and quality of life for women. Aim To try and understand more about pelvic floor exercises. Methods A search was performed on Cochrane, CINAHL and Discover More. Delimiting the search provided 28 papers, which then informed this literature review. Differing methodology and small sample size of individual studies, variation in trainer and the design of pelvic floor muscle exercises education limited the evidence base. Findings Many barriers existed and women were found to be disinterested with pelvic floor exercises or unaware of the reasons for performing them. Those who were young, in their first pregnancy and from deprived areas were less likely to perform pelvic floor muscle exercises, as they had no access to information or believed they were not necessary. Midwives lacked confidence in their knowledge and suggested that other health professionals could perform promotion better. Conclusions It is important to investigate how midwives can influence education about pelvic floor muscle exercises and women's perceptions. New and creative methods of health promotion are needed to engage women with pelvic floor muscle exercises more effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seeking service user feedback for student nurses who are engaged in community learning experiences is an important part of a mentor's role. This paper discusses what is currently advocated, the mentor's role in obtaining and managing feedback and makes recommendations to improve the process in the community practice setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many nurses in the United Kingdom are now undertaking PhDs; however, the process is both complex and time consuming. Research has shown that effective supervision can significantly influence the quality of the PhD and its eventual success or failure. Consequently, many common problems experienced during a Phd often relate to difficulties in the supervisory process. PhD students and supervisors often have different expectations, needs and ways of thinking and working. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to provide an overview of the key elements of research supervision. The paper is aimed at students, prospective students and supervisors involved in the PhD process and explores the perspectives of a student and a supervisor and discusses what each can and should reasonably expect from supervision, how to identify and address potential supervisory problems and how to maintain an effective working relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The widening participation agenda has particular significance for worldwide nursing since it is a profession which is under increasing scrutiny in its recruitment and retention practices. Debate about this agenda within nurse education is strengthened by careful scrutiny of the research within the wider context of higher education, some of which challenges commonly held assumptions. This paper examines four areas of relevance to the UK widening participation agenda: disability, ethnicity, socioeconomic status and family responsibilities. Taken together, they indicate that nurse education operates within a particularly complex context with some important implications for the future design of pre-registration programmes. These complexities should be debated in depth by educational commissioners and providers, in tandem with regulatory bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary health care is increasingly being located in the community. From the evident changes in demographics and general health, it can be derived that the people whom student nurses care for are likely to have multiple comorbidities and be vulnerable to clinical deterioration. These nurses are required to develop a range of transferrable skills to meet the demands of the population. The challenge for educators of preregistration student nurses is to develop educational strategies to prepare them with the skills, knowledge, and confidence necessary to recognise and manage deterioration appropriately in any context. This article is the first of two papers discussing the stimulus, design, and delivery of an educational innovation that focuses on the recognition and management of the deteriorating patient. The article explores current literature about community-focused simulation highlighting the potential learning opportunities resulting from contextualising simulation scenarios specific to the community setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solution-focused therapy is a model of therapy that builds on the client's strengths, is future-focused and can be generally offered as a brief intervention. It can be used across multiple clinical settings and is not limited to being useful for clients accessing mental health services. Learning the underlying principles and developing a foundation level of skill in the approach was found to be achievable in an undergraduate nursing course, with students reporting an increase in their knowledge of the model and confidence in basic therapeutic skills in just one day of training. In this paper, we introduce the solution-focused approach in relation to nursing practice. We describe the template used for the training day offered to undergraduate mental health nurses. Students reported that this method of learning a therapeutic approach was helpful and increased both their knowledge and skill base. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The area of simulation within education is fast developing, with many educational providers striving to keep up with current advances in technology. Evaluation of simulation learning appears overwhelmingly positive (Moule et al, 2008; McCaughey and Traynor, 2010; Hope et al, 2011). However, when looking to generate financial support to develop simulation practices within education, little evidence exists regarding its impact within clinical practice. This paper details the findings of a scoping exercise undertaken to ascertain current simulation practice within nursing curricula, in order to identify good practices and a clear evidence-base for embedding and using simulation to enhance education and practice. The project found overwhelming support for simulated learning from students and facilitators. However, it was highlighted that no clear guidance or strategies were universally used to effectively incorporate simulation within curricula, nor to evaluate or audit its effect upon student competency within clinical practice. Further evidence to support the implementation of simulation within nurse education is therefore required to ensure effective implementation and transferability of learning into clinical care settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the publication of the Nursing and Midwifery Council's (NMC) (2007) Simulation of Practice Learning Project, simulated practice learning opportunities are now to be incorporated into preregistration undergraduate nursing programmes across the UK. Since 2008, the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at Oxford Brookes University has incorporated simulated practice learning into their curriculum to contribute towards students' 2300 direct clinical care hours. This paper presents the findings of an evaluation project that was conducted by academic staff within the faculty to ensure that they could continue to meet the principles set out by the NMC for auditing simulated learning environments used by higher education institutes (HEIs), and to meet the Essential Skills Clusters (NMC, 2010a) for registration as part of the quality assurance processes. The evaluation took place over 2 days, with a total of 52 participants, including practice partners, mentors, practice educators, academic staff and students from all four branches of nursing (adult, mental health, learning disability and children). Results indicated that the support of direct care hours through simulated practice learning can permit students to practice essential clinical skills in a designated clinical skills suite. These learning experiences can also offer positive outcomes and the opportunities to maintain partnership for students, placement partners, and mentors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This UK-based empirical research investigates interprofessionalism and personalization to assess their potential to achieve quality care provision for people with long-term conditions. Governmental policies extol the virtues of interprofessionalism and personalization to drive modernization forward, however, change requires the commitment of health and social care professionals. Therefore the complexity of turning policy into practice requires continual review to ensure policy ideals become practice realities rather than speculative rhetoric. This paper examines interprofessional working (IPW) and interprofessional education (IPE) by analysing the experiences and working relationships of professionals from different professions and their potential impact upon personalization initiatives. The conclusion argues that educational providers and professional awarding bodies need to enshrine interprofessionalism into curricula and qualification accreditation thereby instilling collaboration intrinsically into care provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]