Practice Education Facilitators (PEFs)

There are 100 whole time equivalent PEF posts across the 14 territorial and two clinical national NHS boards in Scotland. A tripartite funding arrangement involving NES, NHS Boards and Higher Education Institutions supports these roles.

PEFs in partnership with practice and academic colleagues, identify, develop and sustain the number and quality of approved practice learning environments (PLEs), while enhancing the capacity and capability of mentors and practice teachers in enacting their regulatory responsibiites in learning and assessment in practice. They do this by providing practitioners with the support they need to improve learners' practice learning experience in accordance with the revised Nursing and Midwifery Council Standards to Support Learning and Assessment in Practice (2008) and the Quality Standards for Practice Placements (QSPP) (NES, 2008).

Alongside this core PEF function, each year three national priorities are developed and agreed by NES, NHS Boards Practice Education Leads and Higher Education Institutions colleagues to enable a flexible and cohesive response to regulatory and policy drivers.

The three national priorities for 2019-2020 are:

Priority 1: Enhance engagement with and political awareness of nursing and midwifery professional practice and regulatory changes
Priority 2: Extend the breadth of practice learning experiences into contemporary health and care environments
Priority 3: Enhance and sustain the quality of the practice learning environment

PEFs are visible and accessible to the practice learning environment within their individual remits where they support delivery of a range of initatives some of which are presented in the PEF regional highlights section below.