Preparing registrants for mentor roles: the chicken or egg conundrum
Intended for healthcare professionals
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Preparing registrants for mentor roles: the chicken or egg conundrum

Claire McGuinness Lecturer/mentorship coordinator, Health and Community Sciences, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow
Jacqueline McCallum Assistant head of department, Health & Community Sciences, Glasgow Caledonian University
Kathleen Duffy Senior nurse practice education, NHS Lanarkshire

The Nursing and Midwifery Council’s (NMC) Standards to Support Learning and Assessment in Practice (2008) outline requirements for the preparation of those who support nursing and midwifery pre-registration students in practice, formally known as mentors. Pre-registration nursing and midwifery programme providers, and practice learning environments (PLEs), work collaboratively to prepare registrants to undertake this role, and to help them maintain mentor status. An important NMC requirement is that registrants, when undertaking mentor preparation programmes, must be supported by experienced mentors in their workplace. This is challenging for programme providers and PLEs if there is lack of experienced mentors in the area concerned. This article discusses support for registrants when preparing to become mentors, suggests some alternative solutions and makes recommendations for the future of mentor preparation in the UK.

Nursing Management. 23, 8, 36-39. doi: 10.7748/nm.2016.e1524

Correspondence

claire.mcguinness@gcu.ac.uk

Peer review

This article has been subject to external double-blind peer review and checked for plagiarism using automated software

Conflict of interest

None declared

Received: 06 May 2016

Accepted: 05 July 2016

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