CPD articles
Our continuing professional development (CPD) articles are designed to assist with your nursing skills and practice.
Chairing and managing formal workplace meetings: skills for nurse leaders
An overview of how to lead and manage effective meetings
Teamwork in nursing: essential elements for practice
As any nurse working in the NHS knows, teamwork can be powerful. Successful teamwork can make a huge workload of unmanageable tasks manageable. However, unsuccessful teamwork can leave people struggling to cope. This article explores readers’ knowledge and skills related to teamwork and provides them with new skills and techniques to improve practice.
Action learning: staff development, implementing change, interdisciplinary working and...
Action learning (AL) is a process that supports problem-solving by applying a questioning formula to challenge issues and prompt actions. Initially developed to support organisational change, AL is now recognised as a motivating and influencing process for team development, individual goal setting, change initiatives, quality improvement and leadership development. Learning from observation and practice is central to its approach, which lends itself to healthcare settings. It is especially useful to managers seeking to implement change, enhance quality and promote teamwork in multidisciplinary settings.
Importance of reflection in revalidation
Reflection is a hallmark of professional practice and an important element of the Nursing and Midwifery Council revalidation process. Following two previous continuing professional development articles, on reflection and professional learning and on reflection and personal learning, this article will aim to explore the specific elements of reflection required for revalidation. This publication should help demystify and support registrants embarking on the process.
Applying the Data Protection Act 2018 and General Data Protection Regulation principles...
The Data Protection Act (DPA) of 1998 was radically updated in 2018 and since then there has been much media coverage about the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Recent headlines have featured well known organisations that have been fined under the DPA 1998. This article describes the recent changes in data protection law, including the principles behind the DPA and GDPR, highlights patients’ rights and how nurses can advocate for the protection of patients’ personal data, and outlines nurses’ role in ensuring that the principles of data protection are implemented fully as part of patient care delivery.
Reflection and personal learning
Part one of this six-part continuing professional development series considered the role of nurse managers in supporting reflection for professional learning. It was aimed at enabling readers to consider critically the role of reflection in nursing and relate this to the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s professional requirements. Part two explores approaches to and benefits of reflection for self-development. The notion of self-development may seem removed from professional practice and nurse leadership but the traits that demonstrate who we are, how we learn, how we act and how we influence are related to and transferable from self to professional self. This article considers the purpose of reflecting beyond professional requirements, the influence of our experiences on who we are and what we learn, the value of protected time to think and the benefits of reflecting for personal development. The aim of this article is to consider the transferability of reflection between our professional and personal selves. After reading this article and completing the time outs, you should be able to: • Consider the role of reflection in your personal life. • Develop a considered approach to gaining knowledge through experience. • Contemplate the links between being reflective and being thoughtful.
Encouraging reflection in professional learning
This article examines the role of nurse managers in supporting reflection for professional learning. It aims to enable readers to critically review the role of reflection in nursing and relate this to the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) professional requirements. It also aims to enable readers to consider the purpose of reflection and to help nurse managers explore their role in fostering environments in which to reflect. After reading this article and completing the time outs, you should be able to: • Critically consider the role of reflection in nursing. • Explore the professional requirements relating to the NMC and reflection. • Unpick the purpose of reflection. • Highlight the role of nurse managers in fostering environments in which to reflect.
How mentors can influence the values, behaviours and attitudes of nursing staff
This article explores the concept and processes involved in professional socialisation and how mentors and nurse managers can help to foster positive aspects of this in their practice. Positive professional socialisation needs champions to instil fundamental professional values and behaviours in nursing staff, and managers need to support mentors to influence and lead the way in promoting standards of excellence in the nursing profession to assure public trust and confidence, and ultimately patient safety. The time out activities will ask you to consider and develop possible strategies to help support mentors and staff, and aim to encourage you to explore the potential benefits of positive professional socialisation for your team in delivering high quality patient care.
Revalidation: implications for senior nurses
Revalidation replaces the current triennial self-declaration system of maintaining nurse registration. It involves a third-party affirmation process designed to improve public and patient confidence that nurses remain up to date by undertaking relevant professional development activities. While revalidation is ultimately the responsibility of individual nurses, senior nurses have an important facilitating role in ensuring that registrants can remain on the register and so continue to practise. This article outlines, from a practical perspective, the senior nurse’s role and responsibilities in supporting registrants through each stage of the revalidation process.
Introduction to economic assessment – part 4
This is the final in a series of four continuing professional development articles on economic assessment (EA), more specifically EA in the context of nurse-led service innovation. The series aims to equip readers with an understanding of: (a) the main requirements of EA; (b) definitions of relevant terminology; (c) different EA techniques and their associated strengths and weaknesses; and (d) procedures to assign monetary values to costs and benefits. The series introduces a methodology, with associated tools and templates, that has been used by practising nurses to conduct EAs. The aim of this article is to show readers how to put monetary values on the types of cost incurred, and benefits generated, by a service innovation.
Introduction to economic assessment – part 3
This is the third in a series of four continuing professional development articles on economic assessment. The series aims to equip readers with the knowledge and skills to apply the principles of economic assessment in practice. The series describes a tried and tested methodology that has been used by practising nurses leading service innovations. In this article, we introduce tools and templates that have been developed specifically to support nurses applying the methodology.
Introduction to economic assessment – part 2
This is the second in a series of four continuing professional development articles that explain some of the principles of economic assessment (EA) and describe how they may be applied in practice by front line practitioners leading service innovations. It introduces a methodology, with associated tools and templates, that has been used by practising nurses to conduct EAs. Our purpose is to equip readers with the knowledge to develop a technically competent, pragmatic EA that will contribute towards evidence-informed decision making and assure the best use of limited resources. If you have not already read the first article in this series ( McMahon and Sin 2013 ), we strongly advise you to do so as each article purposefully draws and builds on those that have gone before. The time out exercises in the first article required you to access source material located on the RCN website and identify a service innovation in your workplace. The time out exercises in this article draw in these same sources. We begin this article by recapping on the points covered in the first article before exploring the implications of the principles of EA and how to apply them in practice. In this article, we refer to and draw on a companion article published in this edition of Nursing Management ( pages 38-41 ) that sets out the most commonly cited approaches to EA in health and social care. We aim to enable readers, along with those they seek to influence, to make an informed decision as to what may be an appropriate EA approach in any specific context.