Changing my way of thinking

Studying on the degree apprenticeship has completely changed my way of thinking and how I approach patient care. I’m much more confident in advocating for my patients’ needs, and in being proactive in educating my colleagues on new ways of supporting patients. For example, for my university project, I conducted an audit of mouth care documentation and discovered that we often weren’t including mouth care in our assessments. This gave me the confidence to start running reflective sessions for colleagues around how we could improve mouth care, and has had a positive impact on practice. This is now something we make sure we consider in our initial assessments.

Choosing a degree apprenticeship

I chose to pursue the District Nursing Degree Apprenticeship because I wanted to progress in my role in the community and develop my leadership skills. I had an excellent senior practitioner at the time who really inspired me through her work with patients and her leadership of the team, and she was one of the main reasons I chose this pathway.

Gaining a strong knowledge base

The course has taught me to look at the big picture and not take everything at face value – I can’t always know every condition or treatment there is, but I can know where to look for the information that I need. Now I know where the strongest evidence bases are and how to critically analyse research outcomes to put in place the best care for my patients. I’ve even been able to contribute to that evidence base through publishing an article based on research I completed for a university assignment.

Take full advantage of support

At first it can feel overwhelming trying to balance three university days and two days in the workplace seeing patients, but the course is well structured so that you are able to get into a good rhythm. There’s a lot of support from tutors and your skills coach to cope with the workload and the academic demands of a Level 7 course, but you need to be proactive and organised to take full advantage of the support that’s offered.