Evaluating the NMC proficiencies framework: perspectives of students and educators 5 years on.

It is now half a decade since the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) launched Future Nurse: Standards of Proficiency for Registered Nurses. Applicable nationally, this proficiencies framework dictates specific elements of nursing praxis that all pre-registrants must achieve in order to qualify as registered nurses, before going on to gain employment in either the NHS or adjacent healthcare providers. The NMC proficiencies framework is subdivided into seven proficiencies and two annexes, each of which contains multiple specific criteria detailing the skillset pre-registrants must demonstrate, in order to be signed off by a qualified educator. Subsequently, in the last 5 years the standards have brought about significant alterations to the delivery of nursing programmes at UK higher education institutions. This article reports the results of a pair of service evaluations, which gathered feedback from both pre-registrant students and educators in relation to their direct experiences of the NMC's proficiencies framework. The authors compare the contemporary perspectives collated here against earlier academic appraisals of the guidance framework, in order to outline its past and present reception at the level of delivery.

Preparing nurse educators for NMC standards for student supervision and assessment: the impact 4 years on.

Four years on from its launch in 2018 (at the time of writing), the authors provide an up-to-date efficacy assessment of the ongoing implementation of the Nursing and Midwifery Council's Future Nurse: Standards of Proficiency for Registered Nurses (NMC) (2018a). Although these standards have comprehensively transformed the mentorship practices of nursing education courses within higher education, this article provides the first attempt to gauge and synthesise attitudes towards their implementation. Presenting the results of an evaluative survey that collates educators' current views on the implementation of these NMC standards, the authors detail and analyse the past and continuing impacts of this paradigm shift on staff, students, and practice. The findings contribute to the nascent body of knowledge, primarily clustering around four interlinked themes: slow acclimatisation to new models of assessment and supervision; variation in levels of preparation; prohibitive workloads; and role conflict. The authors conclude by providing a recommendation that more robust training resources around the NMC's standards are implemented nationally, in order to provide consistency of delivery by educators across the sector.