Nursing student appeals to NMC for compassionate leave allowance
Posted 09 October 2024 - 16:00
Nursing student Emma Garner missed placement shifts to be with her ill son, she wants the NMC to introduce a compassionate or bereavement leave allowance
A nursing student who missed placement shifts to be with her ill young son in hospital is appealing to the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) to introduce a compassionate leave allowance around the 2,300 practice hours required.
Emma Garner, who is studying at the University of Salford, has 376 placement hours to complete by 15 December before she can qualify as a children’s nurse and apply for her registration pin. She is due to start her new job as a paediatric critical care nurse in January 2025.
Nursing student fears she will struggle to complete placement hours and miss out on new job
But after missing three 12-hour placement shifts in September to be at her five-year-old son George’s bedside when he was hospitalised with a viral-induced wheeze caused by asthma, Ms Garner now fears she will struggle to complete her hours in time to qualify and could miss out on her job.
‘I’m going to give it my all to finish my hours,’ she said. ‘It amounts to four shifts a week, which is a lot, but doable.
‘My fear is, that if something else happens and I don’t complete them, my job offer will be retracted as they have already waited a year for me to qualify. And I know how hard newly qualified nurses are struggling to find a job at the moment.’
Ms Garner, who previously worked as a science teacher for 16 years, was inspired to pursue a career in nursing after the death of her son Thomas in April 2018, who spent his whole life in intensive care due to cardiac and respiratory complications.
Emma Garner wants to focus her career on children's nursing
She explains it is also the reason that her job offer is so important to her, as it is the area of nursing she wants to focus her career on.
‘After what happened to Thomas, George not being well with a respiratory issue can be triggering, so I like to be with him when he’s in hospital. Plus he’s only five,’ she said.
‘I contacted the university and I contacted placement – I actually went to see them as they were in the same hospital.
‘They were absolutely phenomenal. They told me that I needed to focus on my son and that they would sort things out for you. They were wonderful.’
Could NMC introduce discretionary measures or allowance of waived hours on compassionate grounds?
However, Ms Garner said that unlike when she was working as a teacher and her son Thomas was ill, as a nursing student there is no employment support, carer’s leave or time off that could account for her missed hours.
As a teacher, if a school student had experienced a traumatic event out of their control, discretionary measures could be discussed and arranged with exam boards.
She suggests that the NMC could introduce a 10% allowance of waived hours for students that have a legitimate reason for compassionate or bereavement reasons.
Nursing students are not subject to employment rights as they are not technically employees
‘I’m having to back-to-back my shifts to make sure I get my hours. But if we were in another country it would be 1,000 hours over the same amount of time,’ she said.
‘I feel towards the NMC particularly, we are doing 2,300 hours and there is absolutely no leeway on it. It equates to something like a year and a half of work. But as we aren’t technically employees, there is no employment rights, no sick leave, no compassionate leave, absolutely nothing.
‘I know someone, through my bereavement community, whose son died while she was on placement in a critical care setting and she still had to go to placement, otherwise she was not going to qualify.
‘Where is the empathy and the compassion within that when you have to stay with their child when they are ill in hospital? When you put this amount of time, effort and sacrifice into something it would be nice to have some understanding.’
Nursing regulator reviewing practice learning across UK to shape future proposals
An NMC spokesperson said: ‘We’re sorry to hear the situation that Emma is in. Emma’s university and student services are best placed to discuss and agree the way forward with her, as any university would do for a student who is facing extenuating circumstances.
‘We’ve recently embarked on a review of practice learning across the UK. As part of this we’re looking carefully at the quality of education in practice learning settings. We have a student advisory group on this project to enable us to hear the lived experiences of students like Emma, and this will help to shape any future proposals.’
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