Welcome to the Mentorship @ Gwent Healthcare NHS Trust blog which has been created to provide a forum for mentors and trainee mentors working within the trust.

Periodically discussion points will be added and you are invited to contribute by posting comments. These may include thoughts you have on the topic, previous experiences you wish to share with other mentors or suggestions for further discussion threads.

To add a comment click on the comments tag found at the bottom of the post and follow the instructions. When prompted to Choose an Identity, if you are not a Google account holder, select Name/URL or Anonymous. Please note that All posts are reviewed by the administration prior to publication and responses may not be immediate.

It is hoped that this will provide an extra opportunity for support in your valuable role as a mentor and remember you can also visit the Mentorship Page of the Intranet or the Mentorship in Gwent website for more mentorship resources.

Please note the name of this blog will change in October when transition to the new health board is complete.

KEEPING UP TO DATE

The Nursing and Midwifery Council in the ‘Standards to Support Learning and Assessment in Practice (NMC 2008) state that, all mentors are required to update their mentorship knowledge annually and are subject to a triennial review of mentorship activity in order to continue in the mentorship role. This can be achieved in a variety of ways such as attending a formal three hour ‘Mentorship Update’ sessions, by reading update newsletters (see Intranet/Internet sites for copies ) or by attending a ‘Mentorship Forum’. All mentors must also have the opportunity to discuss their role face to face with their peers.
What are your experiences of this to date? Have you attended an update session? If so did you find it useful? Could this be improved? Please share your thoughts and comments.

SIGN OFF MENTORS

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) Standards to Support Learning and Assessment in Practice (2006) introduced the requirement that pre-registration students, in their final supervised practice placement, must be assessed by a sign off mentor. The NMC states: ‘a sign-off mentor, who has met additional criteria must make the final assessment of practice confirming to the NMC that the required proficiencies for entry to the register have been achieved’ (NMC 2006 p2). The standards became effective from September 2007 for those undertaking part-to-part and return to practice nursing courses. For pre-registration nursing students it will take effect from June 2010. It is therefore essential that sufficient numbers of mentors are identified and prepared by this date. It should be noted that the NMC are clear that all mentors need to actively participate in developing their practice through continual professional development in order to meet mentor criteria and sign off criteria, thus maintaining high standards of mentorship practice throughout the three year Pre Registration programme. Those mentors meeting the additional criteria will be registered on the Trust’s mentorship database, and will require an annual update and triennial review to remain active in their role. The NMC stated that the initial decision regarding who may be considered as a sign-off mentor will be made by placement providers in the first instance. Therefore, in order to implement this, the Gwent clinical teachers adapted a self assessment algorithm devised by NHS Education for Scotland (2007) which is available on the Intranet/internet sites. The first group of sign off mentors are invited to utilise this tool either by line managers or through self nomination.

This requirement has generated a great deal of discussion in the clinical areas. Please add your comments and thoughts here.