New nursing course aims to plug NHS workforce gaps

According to the Royal College of Nursing nearly a quarter of practice nursing roles are vacant

Nursing students are being encouraged to consider a career in general practice to help the NHS tackle its ongoing staffing "crisis".

Funded by NHS England, Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) has developed a new module designed to give students an insight into the role.

According to the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) nearly a quarter - 23% - of general practice nursing roles are vacant.

Dr Robin Lewis, Senior Lecturer in Health, Wellbeing and Life Sciences at SHU, said he hoped the course would "address the workforce crisis, whilst ensuring the NHS has skilled health professionals for the future".

The course aims to provide students with an insight into the world of general practice

The shortage of general practice nurses has been put down to a number of factors, including ageing, outdated attitudes, the preference for experienced nurses, Covid, pay, conditions and morale.

Sarah Dodsworth from the RCN Yorkshire & the Humber said: "General practice nursing staff are paramount to the success of the NHS [yet] almost a third of GP nursing staff went without a pay rise last year. So it's utterly unsurprising that morale is poor."

Dr Lewis added: "We've known about about the demographics of the practice nurses for a while now - [back in] 2016 we knew there was a problem then.

"The hardest part was convincing GPs, and Covid set us back five years."

The course, being offered in Sheffield and at University Campus Doncaster, is taught by "nurse educators" currently working in general practice.

Module lead Emma Parker said "Traditionally there is this thought that nurses need lots of years of experience - this module [tries to] dispel these myths and encourage newly qualified nurses into primary health nursing."

Iona Smith ,33, who is in the final year of her nursing course, said she wanted to pursue a career in general practice after enjoying her GP placement.

She said: "I loved it. I flourished and my confidence grew.

"There's a lot of us who want to go down that route, which means that there's going to be a workforce for longer, which is good."

A spokesperson for NHS England said it was working to expand access to and awareness of practice nursing as part of the government's 10-year plan, adding that more than 300 nurses had taken part in nursing programmes such as the one at Sheffield Hallam University.

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