Increasing placement opportunities at a London community trust

Abstract

As healthcare service provision is shifting from acute hospital settings to community settings and primary care, the nursing curriculum puts an increased emphasis on these sectors with student nurses increasingly needing community-based clinical placements. Furthermore, changes in how students are mentored in clinical practice are under way. In collaboration with London South Bank University, a London community trust has expanded its offer of clinical placements through a pilot project involving 11 children's centres. The placements were either hub-and-breadth-spoke placements or used a team-mentoring model. This article describes the pilot project, its background, implementation and evaluation.

This article has been double-blind peer reviewed

In this article…

• Reasons for a lack of community-based placement opportunities for student nurses

• Details of a pilot project to expand placement capacity at a London community trust

• Feedback from students, mentors and staff on new placements in children's centres

Key points

Healthcare service provision is shifting from hospital to community settings

There is a lack of placements in community settings

The traditional one-to-one mentorship model is effective but not always feasible

In team mentorship, responsibility for mentoring is shared and students are exposed to a greater diversity of practice

Hub-and-breadth-spoke placements give students a chance to expand the span of their learning

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