Preceptorship

If you are a Children's Nurse then please contact the Children's Hospital Preceptorship Team, for further information about training and education that forms the preceptorship program and the range of specialities that they have. To summarise, the preceptorship program includes a minimum of 16 study days over the course of your first year, alongside access to their team for coaching and support. The study days include Acute Care Skills which is a five day course ran by the Deteriorating patient education lead, Paediatric Intermediate Life Support course which is nationally recognised, specialist study days for your area and a variety of study days within their team that focus on personal development of both skills and confidence in a supportive environment with your peers.

If you are interested in their rotation program, then this is a bespoke pathway, tailored to you, lasting around 18 months. You could either do three six month rotations or two nine month rotations. This however is flexible, as they ask you for your preferences of area for your next rotation throughout the program so you also have the option to request to extend your current rotation. As part of the rotation pathway, there is the opportunity to rotate to Children’s ED, Neonates or PCCU as these are more specialised areas they allow you to consolidate your practice as a newly qualified nurse for the first six months and then offer the option of rotation to these areas. Towards the end of your final rotation you simply submit your preferences for your permanent “home” ward and are not required to re-interview.

If you have your mind set on going to work permanently in one area then they can also accommodate this, when vacancies are available. The PCCU offers a foundation program for newly qualified nurses who see their careers in intensive care, which runs over a year along side the preceptorship program. The PCCU foundation program is often popular so you would need to express your interest in this on your application. For further down the line in your career at Nottingham Children's Hospital, they have the opportunity to undertake a transfer window to another area within the hospital without re-interviewing as they recognise the value of this development opportunity for staff. Through the transfer window you’ll have the opportunity to work on another ward area for 6 months and gain a lot of new skills and experience, to then take these skills back to your base ward, or look further at staying at the new ward if you wished. 

Get in touch with Children's Hospital Preceptorship Team:

 0115 9249924 ext: 83838 or 07812275195

  nuhnt.childrenspreceptorship@nhs.net 

The Acute Care Skills Programme is designed to provide the start of a professional development career pathway in acute care nursing for all newly qualified nurses.

It aims to improve confidence in patient assessment using an ABCDE approach, and management skills caring for acutely ill patients in all clinical areas. Developing assertiveness and prioritisation skills, but also including the Chief Nursing Officer’s 6Cs and supporting the Trust values and behaviours initiative. 

If you're a newly-qualified, or a current Staff Nurse at Team NUH, you could take part in our Rotation Programme to develop your experience and take the next step in your career. 

It's flexible in its length with some nurses opting for an eighteen month or two year rotation split into six month placements. However, some nurses opt for two nine month placements if they go to specialist areas.

Nurses can choose to do rotations that follow a traditional pathway such as Acute Medicine, Trauma or Surgery. However increasingly we are seeing that newly qualified nurses wish to experience cross speciality placements which are supported across the divisions.

Our Preceptorship Team works closely with clinical areas to ensure that both our Band 5 nurse/s on rotation and the ward staff are well supported.

Rotation is a fantastic way to begin your career at NUH, gaining knowledge and experience across a range of specialities and seeing the trust from a wider perspective.

As part of the rotation programme you will receive:

• A bespoke preceptorship plan for rotation to structure your programme
• Access to the Acute Care Skills Course
• A Preceptorship Induction Day
• Protected learning time in the first year of practice
• Group clinical supervision every eight weeks

The preceptorship year is one of the most challenging times in a nurse's career, Resilience Based Clinical Supervision (RBCS) helps develop resilience to cope with the challenges of being a new nurse. By sharing these challenges with a group of peers, colleagues can build up a support network - they see that they are not alone in this journey.

How does it work?

Colleagues are allocated to a supervision group of around 12 peers for a session lasting 1.5 hours. These sessions are provided every 8 weeks throughout the preceptorship year. 

The sessions are a facilitated discussion around the personal experiences, challenges and successes of the group members' preceptorship. It is about sharing experiences from practice and supporting staff to unpick situations they've been in at work. It encourages the group members to consider the different aspects to that situation and think differently about what has happened. It doesn't change what experiences people have faced, but encourages reflection on those experiences for future practice.