Clinical skills, human touch

Contemporary nursing practice is undertaken in an increasingly diverse range of settings. It is important that nurses working in all settings, with people of all ages and with diverse care needs, feel suitably equipped to do their job to the highest standard. The range of clinical skills explained in the ongoing BJN clinical and at-a-glance articles is indicative of the potential range used within nursing. Plans for further articles include skills ranging from the highly technical advanced practice skills to the more essential human skills core to the profession of nursing.

With the implementation of the revised Nursing an Midwifery Council (NMC) standards (NMC, 2018), UK universities are currently refreshing their NMC-approved programmes at all levels. This offers an opportunity to ‘future proof’ programmes by ensuring that the clinical knowledge, skills and proficiencies being learned by students will enable them to be fit for practice in an increasingly integrated, interprofessional health and social care system. This requires effective partnership between university educators, practice supervisors and practice assessors. We need to work together to ensure that skills taught in a simulated clinical practice setting in university are reinforced and applied by expert practitioners in real-time, practice-learning contexts to enable students to achieve proficiency (NMC, 2018).