Practice Partner: North Middlesex University Hospitals NHS Trust
University Partners: City, University of London, University of Hertfordshire, Middlesex University.
Summary: The Florence Nightingale Foundation (FNF) in collaboration with North Middlesex University Hospitals NHS Trust (NMUH) launched a pilot student leadership programme for nine student nurses and midwives. Supported by City University of London, the University of Hertfordshire and Middlesex University, the successful nine student leaders have embarked on a practice based bespoke leadership programme which includes mentorship from NMUH FNF Scholars. It will equip them with the skills and knowledge to tackle real workplace issues while having a deeper understanding of themselves and their impact on patient care.
This development is a commitment and a proactive response to a prompt from a challenge, from Chief Nursing Officer Ruth May, when she asked us: ‘look after our young nurses & midwives’.
Outcomes: All nine students are required to identify and deliver a presentation on a quality improvement project proposal which will improve patient outcomes, with the support of their mentor. This enables them to reflect on nursing and midwifery practice and embrace their ideas for improvement, to ameliorate or even generate new knowledge, by those nursing students, closest to patients, on the front line. It also encourages students to have a voice and use their leadership skills and ideas to impact directly on health and social care outcomes early on in their careers.
The team are committed to sharing learning and plan to make this a sustainable programme and opportunity for more student nurses and midwives. The programme has already been reported on in the Nursing Times and featured in an article on student leadership opportunities from the Nursing Standard.
The FNF Policy Unit will undertake a longitudinal mixed methods evaluation to explore the experience of this early career leadership intervention and impact over time. This will include the administration of the FNF Leadership Impact Scale which measures self-efficacy, career progression and perceived leadership competence over time and a series of qualitative longitudinal case studies.