RCVS

Re: RCVS

laura Petts — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 15:35:07 GMT

The NPL is taking some getting used to but it is worth remembering that the old portfolio was adapted many times over many years and in the end it wasnit picking to the extreme to meet all the criteria.

The NPL was a complete change to the way we worked and trained nurses and I have experienced the stresses you describe but the NPL is being adapted all the time and many of the irks we have are being removed or adapted to fit around general practice, at least now amendments can be made over days not years!

I will agree that there was such a rush to get the diploma going that the support for coaches and students was terrible at the start and we were effectively left to just muddle through it and do what we could although the centres and RCVS are becoming much better at giving guidance. We must remember it was thrust upon the course providers and centres as rapidly as it was on us due to the removal of all funding.

Try to bear with it whilst the niggles get worked out, it does help if you have access to experienced coaches but there is always the other nurses on here for advice and support. xx

Re: RCVS

fnewboult — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:36:05 GMT

I'm also a student VN and will be coming to the end of my training in the Summer and have been mucked and messed about no end (I'm at the RVC & we were put onto something of their own invention rather than portfolio in preparation to going onto NPL... confusing isn't even the word. None of the assessors knew what to do with it and us students were only slightly less confused!). I don't think bringing back portfolio is the answer having seen the thickness of some of the things, the amount of paperwork is just silly but I think the NPL needs improvement definitely! First off it's daft that whilst students can log a task under multiple skills at the same time CC's have to open things by clicking on them one by one, it would save a lot of time I think if there was the option for related tasks to be opened together! Also I think only 1 person having access to NPL at a time is a daft rule (although works fine in most general practice situations I'll admit). My last placement has been in a referral hospital and as such I've moved around a bit and had several clinical coaches. It would have been infinitely useful for them to have all been able to access my NPL from the start as sometimes tasks that should have been signed off / opened under one coach weren't for one reason or another meaning they then had to liase with my next coach and in one case there are tasks that have been passed off to THREE different coaches and no one of them has actually had the time to actually get all the information together and open the damn skills so I can log the tens of experiences I've got noted down & ready to go! (obv they are now massively out of the two-week window for logging things but why on earth should I have to suffer for things that are not my fault?) Another thing that irks me is that I can't track my own progress as to what % completed I am. I also think some of the tasks are repetitive and that some of them are also rather vague with very unhelpful guidance notes (I also don't like how specific the ECC triage ones are; what are the odds of managing to actually be lucky enough to see an unconcious patient AND a patient with a fracture AND a hemorrhaging patient all of whom need first aid? Sorry, I do like the odd rant!

Re: RCVS

fairy — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 14:37:37 GMT

I can imagine Gemma.x

Re: RCVS

Gemma Burden RVN — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 20:33:39 GMT

It never fails to suprise me just how little the RCVS seems to listen to what those training nurses tell them about the problems with nurse training, and then seem suprised when student nurses don't complete their training. I never thought I would say it considering what a paper pushing exercise it was, but I wish they would bring the portfolio back too, at least we knew what we were dealing with. And dont even get me started on the equine stuff they introduced!