Practice Nurse Development
General Practice Nurses are key to the provision of safe and high quality patient care in a community setting
Initiatives supporting practice nurses to provide safe and
quality care for people in General Practice were introduced in 2006
at NHS Education for Scotland. A national learning and development
GPN lead established new resources including an Educational Toolkit
in Knowledge Network, Appraisal Handbook, regular newsletters and
much else.
Now a co-ordinated network of General Practice Nurse Education
Advisors, led by a National Co-ordinator, will extend this work.
The aims are to:
- Support General Practice Nursing (GPN) with a robust model of education and training thereby providing a more informed and skilled GPN workforce.
- Improve the communication, visibility and credibility of the GPN workforce.
Please visit this page to keep you up to date with our work and tell you about learning and career opportunities for practice nurses. Also contact us with your queries and suggestions.
General Practice Nursing Team
We are a team of practice nurses working to improve communication and deliver quality education to practice nurses across Scotland. Nursing in general practice is a challenging, dynamic and rewarding profession. Many practice nurses work autonomously therefore having easy access to a network of experienced nurses for educational advice and support is very important.
The team includes:
- The National Co-ordinator for General Practice Nursing (GPN)
- Sessional experienced practice nurses called GPN Education Advisors based in NHS Health Boards
- GPN Trainers (to be appointed in early 2012)
A new educational programme, based in practice and supported by GPN Trainers, is planned for 2012 to support nurses to become general practice nurses.
GPN Newsletters
Click here to read the first GPN newsletter;
If you wish to receive our newsletters through our network or if you have any items for inclusion or you would like to read about a particular practice nurse issue please email susan.kennedy@nes.scot.nhs.uk to discuss this further.
NMC National GPN Meetings
A Roundtable meeting hosted by the NMC was held in London on 17th May, 2011. Susan Kennedy (NHS Education) and Jane Harris represented practice nursing in Scotland. A report of the meeting was published in the NMC newsletter in July. The Professor Dickon Weir-Hughes, Chief Executive and Registrar at the NMC recognised a number of challenges for general practice nursing, for example:
- Adherence to the code and meeting NMC post registration education and practice standards (PREP)
- Employment practice and implications for professional accountability
- Education beyond initial registration and specialist practice qualification GPN
- Health care support workers and assistant practitioners in general practice - implications for accountability and delegation
- NMC engagement with practice nurses and their employers
Modernising Nursing in the Community (MNiC)
There are a number of general practice nurses representing you in this work for safe effective, and person centred care. They are attending various meetings including discussions on education, the NES Toollkit, Adults and older adults, People at work and career Framework for GPN. There will be regular updates about this in GPN newsletters.
