“Am I a student or a Healthcare Assistant?” A qualitative evaluation of a programme of prenursing care experience

Abstract

Prenursing care experience can positively prepare aspirant nurses for programmes of nurse education. The benefits identified were confirmation of aspiration (or otherwise) to pursue nursing, learning opportunities, and aspiration to improve patient experience. Risks for the programme included poor supervision, role ambiguity or confusion, demotivation through a deteriorating view of nursing, and poor treatment by others. The longer term impact on values and behaviours of this cohort requires further evaluation.

Nursing students’ experiences of working as healthcare support workers

“…Overall, 954 records were identified through database and hand searching. After duplicates were removed and the remaining 600 records screened using their title and abstract, 30 were screened as full-text documents, which resulted in eight papers being included in the literature review (Algoso and Peters 2012, Hasson et al 2013a, 2013b, Annear et al 2014, Draper et al 2014, Smith et al 2015, Whiffin et al 2018, Draper 2018.…”

“…newly qualified nurse role, finding there was complex role and identity navigation which is linked to the importance of relationships. Whiffin et al (2018) undertook a longitudinal prospective study from the perspective of HCSWs who were going on to become nursing students, while Smith et al (2015) undertook a mixed methods study of pre-nursing scholarship school pupils and nursing students who were acting as pupil "buddies" to the scholarship students. .…”

“…Many pre-registration nursing students are employed part-time by the NHS as healthcare support workers (HCSW) and alternate between the role of nursing student and HCSW (Draper 2018, Whiffin et al 2018, Crevacore et al 2019. In the UK, nursing students are defined as learners and are supernumerary when on practice placements (Nursing and Midwifery Council 2008), but this changes when they are working as a HCSW.…”