Policy Projects

Practice learning is a requirement for students wishing to become nurses, nursing associates and midwives in the United Kingdom. The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) commissioned the Nuffield Trust, in collaboration with FNF, to undertake some research on practice learning. The research is intended to support the NMC’s aim to recognise and acknowledge innovation, and ensure that their requirements continue to equip students with the knowledge and skills to deliver the best possible care for people across a diverse range of care settings.

The main output from the work is an independent report, completed in December 2024. This revealed highly varied learning experiences and supervision, and calls for action to ensure high quality education.

The report examined the evidence relating to regulations and standards around students’ practice learning. It investigated how well NMC requirements are being implemented, and the challenges in providing optimal practice learning placements for the next generation of nurses, midwives and nursing associates.

This briefing reports on a project FNF undertook to answer the following questions:

• What are the current challenges and barriers faced by clinical educators in gaining
  recognition and status within the healthcare workforce?
• What strategies can be implemented to better support the clinical educator workforce to
  ensure their contributions are valued and recognised?
• How can the professional development of clinical educators be enhanced and supported?

To answer these questions, we undertook extensive consultation, including with FNF’s Clinical Education Improvement Fellows (CEIF). The CEIF programme was a two year initiative aimed at driving innovation and quality improvement in clinical education within local systems. Funded by Health Education England South-East, the programme was delivered in partnership between FNF and Canterbury Christchurch University.

Read the full briefing here.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) commissioned FNF to undertake a programme of research to inform its future decision-making regarding additional regulation for advanced practice and its possible impact on internationally educated nurses and midwives (IENMs) on the NMC register. In particular, the NMC is interested in understanding what is known about advanced practice in the countries where the UK primarily recruits from and the extent to which IENMs on the NMC register use their experience of advanced practice gained outside of the UK.

The findings in the initial paper were primarily intended to inform planned primary data collection exercises with IENMs on the NMC register. The findings presented here and then via extensive primary data collection activity were then combined to form a single report to inform the wider NMC advanced practice review.

Click here to read the full report.

The Student Councils programme, funded by Health Education England (HEE) South East, was a two-year initiative aimed at incorporating student perspectives into the development of education and learning structures across the region. The funding was used to develop six multi- professional student councils, comprised of student nurses, trainee nursing associates, midwives, and AHPs across the six Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) in the region.

An evaluation report was published in January 2024.

A toolkit has since been developed to support organisations and individuals interested in this process. it is available exclusively to our Academy members on the member portal.

NHS England  (NHSE) convened the Acute Deterioration Board and a ‘Worry and Concern’ Task and Finish Group the latter a subgroup of the former. The issue of clinician, patient and family worry and concern was identified as a key priority for the Acute Deterioration Board, to understand and therefore improve the recognition and response to acute deterioration in patients in a range of settings, including learning disability, mental health, care homes and acute care settings. It aims to understand the barriers and enablers to escalate concerns that can affect outcomes for the patient.

FNF undertook a study to explore the influence of leadership, culture, and hierarchy on raising concerns relating to patient deterioration.

The study was published in the Journal of Patient Safety in July 2023.

Read more here.

Around 1 in 5 nurses in England leave NHS hospital and community services within their first two years on the NMC register3. There is a strong consensus that the first year after registration is a particularly challenging period for nurses and midwives. Preceptorship programmes provide structured starts and aim to provide support, guidance, and development to build confidence during this transition period.

To improve preceptorship, we partnered with the Nursing Times and UNISON to gather evidence about experiences of preceptorship for Newly Registered Nurses (NRNs) to advocate for change. Our campaign in 2021-22 directly contributed to the development and/or improvement of the 4 Country National preceptorship frameworks. We repeated the survey in January 2024 to continue building the evidence for high quality preceptorship for all. This showed that encouraging progress had been made since the initial survey but more still needs to be done.

FNF informed the direction for embedding the findings of The Phillips Ives Review in education, research and practice by bringing together all key parties who contributed to the evidence gathering and formation of the report.

Our role was to gather and collate feedback from key parties to contribute to the post
implementation strategy and associated action plan.

Read the workshop report here.

A new report captures the insights from nurse and midwifery leaders who FNF convened to attend the flagship WHAT DO YOU STAND FOR? Summit, sponsored by Elsevier Health.

Recognising the pivotal role of nurses and midwives in healthcare delivery, the event aimed to empower nurses and midwives to drive positive change and innovation within their respective fields.

To address the most pressing challenges in health and care, nurses and midwives will have to develop the skills to influence around key areas. These areas include: leadership development, professional voice, political acumen, and digital understanding and skills, with a focus on the role of AI tools in supporting day-to-day roles and education.

In 2020, Health Education England (HEE) commissioned us to conduct research examining the impact of the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic on learning disability (LD) nurses and the services they provide. Through focus groups with our LD nurse alumni community, our study identified how LD nurses kept people with learning disabilities connected and safe during an intense period of social isolation.

An article reporting on the project has been published in ‘Learning Disability
Practice’. The results were presented to the HEE/ NHS E/I ‘All England Plan for Learning Disability Nursing’ steering group and informed the operational strategy for this vital workforce agenda.