Providing the NHS talent pipeline

Changing lives  

Professor Mark Hayter, Head of the School of Nursing and Public Health at Manchester Metropolitan University said: “The University makes a substantial contribution to the NHS workforce locally and we are very proud of that.  

“All our graduates will touch people’s lives. There aren’t many jobs in which you will have a significant impact or change someone’s life every day.”  

He went on to add: “We have extremely strong links with our NHS and other health and social care partners in the North West and they are incredibly important to us. We work very closely with them. We provide a pipeline for their workforce for new registrants, and we also train their existing workforce in advanced clinical skills.”  

For example, postgraduate nursing programmes focus on advancing practice. The Advanced Clinical Practice Masters degree apprenticeship equips experienced nurses to work alongside other members of the multi-disciplinary team providing expert care to patients across acute and community services. They are trained to a very high clinical level and also have expertise in research, education and leadership. 

There are also postgraduate courses that educate nurses to independently prescribe medication. This provides nurses with the advanced skills and knowledge to improve patient choice and access to medicines, whilst supporting the modernisation of the NHS. 

Maintaining the clinical workforce  

The University makes a significant contribution to the NHS workforce, which needs to maintain numbers of staff to provide high-quality care. It has many partners across the NHS, and they offer placements for students. 

Mark added: “We wouldn’t be able to train nurses, physiotherapists, and dietitians without that partnership. Clinical experience is vital and nurses spend 50% of their program in clinical practice.  

“Students experience a varied number of placements across their programme, and this experience gives them a good sense of where they want to work. Quite often they will go on to work at the hospital where they did their last few placements and hospitals are keen to snap up good students.  

“We offer high-quality placements, and we are very proud of that. We work very hard to make sure that students get a good experience.” 

The University also provides education to support the specialist community public health workforce. This is done via degree apprenticeships to enable qualified nurses to become either health visitors, district nurses or school nurses. This adds around 40 or 50 specialist nurses to the community workforce every year. 

High quality training  

The quantity of nurses that the University provides is significant. More important is the quality of the training.  

Lindsay Gregory is the Lead Practice Education Facilitator at Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport. She said: “It is crucial that we have a constant supply of student nurses. Staffing populations are changing, and we have fewer nurses on shift. We need people who understand what care needs to be delivered, to shape that care and run the wards.  

“Working closely with the University assures me that we have the same ethos of preparing excellent nurses for practice as opposed to just getting degrees through. Nursing is a hands-on job and there are skills that you are required to learn that you can’t always take from a book.”   

Student nurses benefit from innovative simulation facilities so that they can apply their clinical skills and knowledge in a safe setting. Virtual environments are set up and actors are used to ensure that future nurses have the communication skills to deal with challenging situations once they are practicing.