Category: Education

New year…

Cardiff University Colleges and SchoolsHappy new year. 2013 promises plenty. I’m committed to two externally funded research projects, collaborating with outstanding folk located both in, and out, of Cardiff University. In the fullness of time I’ll perhaps blog about these studies when there’s more to say. I’ll be supervising people working on their doctorates, and as always will be teaching and assessing across the range of academic levels. I’ll be working up grant applications (there’s one in the pot at the moment), writing papers (including the one I’ve mentioned before), and contributing to various types of ethics and scientific review processes. I also have a number of external examining roles to fulfil, at doctoral and pre-registration undergraduate level.

In the year ahead I suspect there will be some interesting organisational changes to adjust to as Cardiff University refashions itself, and as the new College and School structure (which I’ve reproduced to the left of this post, with an added oval to highlight where I work) takes shape. As it happens, the University is making headlines at the moment. Just before the Christmas and New Year break Cardiff’s collaboration with the Open University (and others) to develop ‘MOOCS’ (Massive Open Online Courses) was widely reported. As I understand it, MOOCS are free-to-access courses made available via the web to pretty much anyone with use of a computer and an internet connection. I’m not sure how, if at all, people are able to work towards achieving formal academic awards in this way but I very much like the idea of freely available knowledge. Meanwhile, in this week’s Times Higher Education there’s a report on the new Vice Chancellor’s plans to develop the University’s international presence.

REF 2014In 2013 there’s also the small matter of the Research Excellence Framework (REF). I think the REF (like its predecessor the Research Assessment Exercise, or the RAE) is a flawed process, but it remains a (very) big deal for the UK’s universities. In this cycle, formal submissions will be made at the end of the year. Panel members will then have their work cut out in 2014, reading and assessing the quality of outputs (typically, journal papers), judging the impact of completed research beyond the realms of academia (for example, on policy and practice), and reviewing the institutional environment for research activity. Universities will be ranked on the results, and money will flow (or not). For an ambitious, research-led, Russell Group university like Cardiff this is an exercise of great import. It’s also significant for the professions of nursing and midwifery, which have spent the last decades upping their evidence base. In the last RAE, the outcomes of which were made known at the end of 2008, nursing and midwifery research fared pretty well. Let’s hope this can be sustained.

Outside of work I’ll keep running, hoping to stay injury free. As a meticulous record keeper I track my miles. So far for 2013 it’s 22-and-a-bit, and the aim is to manage 1,000 in total. This I achieved in 2012, and more besides. There’s also an increasingly good chance that this year will see Cardiff City climb out of the Football League Championship. I’m liking this, and it’s something I follow (with season tickets) with one of my boys. And, for those interested in the health and well-being angle of all this, check out the work of Alan Pringle and his colleagues on using football as a means to promote mental health, particularly amongst young men. Alan gave a fantastic talk on this at last year’s Network for Psychiatric Nursing Research conference.

That’ll do for now, I think: enough of the rambling.

In praise of…student nurses

Student nurses (and their teachers) have come in for some criticism lately, as I’ve observed on this blog before. I won’t say anything about nursing academics in this briefest of posts, but I will say something about students. Which is this: the vast majority of them are really rather good. In my view this simple truth is not stated sufficiently often. Again and again I come across hard-working, inquisitive, students who are (and here’s the thing) motivated to care. They put the shifts in, come home, and read about how to do it better. They arrive in class ready and willing to learn, share their experiences and improve. They don’t get paid much, and as their careers progress they probably never will. So, students, take the applause: you deserve it.

University of South Wales

A quick post before I head off for the train. Interesting to see that the merger of universities in this part of the world has taken a step forward. Yesterday it was reported that the name of the institution which will bring together the University of Glamorgan and the University of Wales Newport next year is to be the University of South Wales. Some of this has been quite fraught, what with Cardiff Met strongly resisting pressure from Welsh Government to join the party.

I’ve worked through an institutional merger of this type, having first been employed in the University of Wales College of Medicine before moving across to Cardiff University in 2004 when the two joined. In a day-to-day sense I’m not sure I ‘felt’ the significance of this move initially. Sometimes the impact of a change of this type takes time to work its way through the system, but I’m sure the limbering up for merger which has been taking place across other local universities has been anxiety-provoking for some. In the fullness of time it will be interesting to catch up with colleagues in Glamorgan’s Department of Care Sciences to hear how things are progressing. I wish them all well.

The train calls.

New nurses

This afternoon I’ll be joining colleagues to interview potential students of mental health nursing. I imagine I’ll meet a variety of candidates: young people who are still at (or have just left) school, others who are looking for a second (or third) career, and others again who have considerable experience in caring work gained through employment as health care assistants or similar. The range of educational backgrounds people have is likely to be varied. Some may have A levels, or undergraduate degrees (often in the humanities or social sciences). Others may have (or be studying for) Access qualifications via their enrolment at colleges of further education.

From my accumulated experiences of interviewing in this context I expect that most, if not all, of the candidates I meet today will have thought very carefully about their applications. I expect them to be enthused about the prospect of learning and practising, and informed about what this involves. I expect people to demonstrate an interest in others, to be inquisitive and engaged, and to be motivated by a desire to help.

I also imagine that candidates will be aware of today’s proceedings taking place in a context of heightened scrutiny: of nurses, their roles, and their preparation. Cynon Valley MP Ann Clwyd, for example, has had strong things to say about nurses and nursing following the death of her husband at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff. To repeat what I’ve said before on this blog: the fact that nurses now qualify with undergraduate degrees does not make them any less compassionate than those without. To me, the idea that there might be some kind of automatic, inverse, relationship between education and capacity to care makes no sense whatsoever. For those interested, here’s a very thoughtful piece touching on some of this on the notsobigsociety blog.

Learning together, and more on peer review

Along with spending time with students rehearsing research ethics, this week I have also had the chance to be part of a small interprofessional education initiative. This involved pre-registration mental health nurses and pre-registration occupational therapists. Two linked sessions, the last of which was a few days ago, were facilitated by a teaching team led by my excellent colleague Gerwyn Jones, and Ruth Squire (who I hadn’t met before, but was pleased to meet in this context). Also taking part was the fine Teena Clouston, an occupational therapy academic who I have enjoyed working with, on and off, over a period of many years. As an aside, meeting up again with Teena gave me the opportunity to congratulate her on her freshly minted doctorate. That was nice.

Interprofessional education in health and social care is hardly a new idea. It’s also good to do. In the workplace nurses, occupational therapists, doctors, social workers, physiotherapists and all the rest have to rub along together. So why not create opportunities for students from across these fields to learn together first, in the classroom as well as in practice placements?

It’s worth reflecting on the extent to which we still recruit and teach students in uniprofessional isolation. There’s work involved in making connections across different university departments, in creating materials and in planning what will take place. Timetables need to be aligned, and facilities booked. Only then does cross-disciplinary, university-based, learning occur. Having brokered interprofessional education initiatives of this type in the past I appreciate the time and organisation required. But I think we have to collectively put this effort in, and more.

On this occasion, this mental health-focused two days of joint learning culminated in students participating in a role played care planning meeting. I have to say that I was impressed – very impressed – by the way students managed the process. Interactions between professionals, the service user, his carer and an advocate were respectful and productive. I’ve seen a whole lot worse in real life. I left feeling optimistic.

Unrelatedly: yesterday a journal I haven’t reviewed for before got in touch and asked if I would comment on a paper submitted for publication. Last weekend I blogged about peer review, and wrote about having graciously declined an invitation. Yesterday afternoon’s request was different: I know the area being written about, and was happy to give a view.

Changing the subject again, South Wales once more is spectacularly beautiful this morning. Frosty, and dry: perfect for my run.

The Willis Commission

Nursing education sometimes gets a bad press. Students following degree-level pre-registration courses have been variously described as ‘too posh to wash’, or ‘too clever to care’. I’ve never got the argument that it’s an either/or thing. Why can’t nurses be both well-educated and caring? So I was interested to come across the final report of the Willis Commission on nursing education.

This was sponsored by the Royal College of Nursing, and set out to answer the question, ‘What essential features of preregistration nursing education in the UK, and what types of support for newly registered practitioners, are needed to create and maintain a workforce of competent, compassionate nurses fit to deliver future health and social care services?’ I confess I was doubly interested in all this as RCN Mental Health Advisor Ian Hulatt, who I used to share an office with when he worked in Cardiff before taking up his current position, played a big part in getting the Commission off the ground.

There was some scepticism about the timing of the Commission when it was first set up, particularly as nursing programmes throughout the UK were then in the process of being rewritten in response to new regulatory standards. But the final report isn’t about the strengths or shortcomings of particular curricula. What it is concerned with is the preparation and place of nurses in the contemporary health care context. I think the key messages are balanced ones, beginning with a clear emphasis on ‘patient-centred care [as] the golden thread’. There’s also an endorsement of universities’ involvement in nursing education, and of the importance of well-educated, research-minded, practitioners able to fulfil roles in increasingly complex healthcare workplaces.