DDN 0717 DDN 18July2017 | Page 11

CLInICaL eye LegaL LIne A need to inspire FIGHTING BACK We neglect our student nurses at our peril, says Ishbel Straker You have clear evidence to challenge CQC – so prove it, says Nicole Ridgwell I HAVE A DREAM…. that one day all student nurses will be made to feel IN DDN’S ARTICLE ‘MARKET FORCES’ (June, page 14), Dr David Bremner of welcome while on their placements… that student nurses will be nurtured and valued through their journey on hospital wards and community settings. They will arrive with a mentor already named and a timetable set, which will maximise their learning outcomes. They will be encouraged to ask questions and feel comfortable to highlight areas for improvement within services. While undertaking my nurse training my learning experiences varied. On some placements I was met with the ‘dream’, and on others I was met with a response of ‘we didn’t even know you were coming’ – not the best start to a 12-week relationship! What concerns me from a clinical director’s point of view is that nationally we are having a nurse recruitment crisis. We are unable to fill posts with permanent staff, let alone retain them. Our international drives have been unsuccessful and now our university intakes are looking worrying. The bottom line is that we have a duty of care to encourage and nurture our students. We need to position them for the best educational experience they can have in order for the next generation of nurses to come out as well-rounded clinicians. This leads me onto the student’s vocational experience: how are we to attract nurses into the field of addiction when this is not a standardised placement area? With the increase of awareness around comorbidities in addiction, why are we not seeing more general nursing students coming through our services? You might say this is because of the lack of placement opportunities, and I can say that in my current and previous role I made it the top of my agenda to have our services filled with student nurses, to which some universities stated they would not use non-NHS placements. This is an interesting concept when the NHS has a consistently reducing portfolio of addiction services. What is my point? Well, I want students to be welcomed and nurtured when on placement in our addiction services, so much so that they notice, just as I did as a student, that this field is different to any other in nursing. I want students to ask at the end of their placements with us to contact them should any jobs arise in the future, because that placement stands out more than any other in the whole of their three years’ training as one which they want to come back to as a qualified member of staff. What better accolade than when a student nurse returns home to make their career? Turning Point was quoted as stating that providers needed to ‘push back against CQC… I’m a big fan of low threshold prescribing – but try and get that past CQC now’. So how should you prepare for a CQC visit where you can foresee criticism of certain aspects of your service? There is a concern that CQC may fundamentally misunderstand the substance misuse services they are now regulating. This conviction that CQC makes arbitrary decisions, which cannot be reasoned with, has led to some providers choosing not to challenge criticisms. Yet, as Dr Bremner identifies, providers choose which treatments they offer based on their analysis of what works best. Unfortunately, regulators can sometimes take what appears to be an almost political stance in relation to the service being regulated. CQC’s recent interactions with the residential learning disability sector, for example, originate in the Winterbourne View Hospital Serious Case Review, which highlighted the horrors of institutionalisation. The Department of Health report concluded that patients stayed at Winterbourne View for too long and were too far from home. To th