Why cpd for nurses

Search term Search. Toggle navigation. Home Registration Standards Continuing professional development Continuing professional development. Registration Standards Criminal history English language skills Continuing professional development Recency of practice Professional indemnity insurance arrangements Endorsement as a nurse practitioner Endorsement for scheduled medicines for midwives Endorsement for scheduled medicines for registered nurses rural and isolated practice.

Registration standard The revised Registration standard: Continuing professional development came into effect on 1 June Studying a degree approved by the Nursing and Midwifery Council makes sure your education is in line with the current needs of the healthcare sector. Nurses, like any other regulated professionals, must complete a certain amount of continuing professional development CPD each year to stay registered. CPD helps you stay on top of the many evolving aspects of healthcare.

You need to be knowledgeable about a vast spectrum of health conditions and the methods that are currently used to treat them. As these change, the updates covered in CPD allow you to continue doing your job effectively. It may seem like an excessive amount of training, but CPD is important for nurses for so many reasons. Your knowledge and skills will continue to improve throughout the duration of your career. As will your ability to treat and care for the patients in your ward.

Continuing Professional Development CPD allows you to maintain professional credentials and develop your skills through short courses or on the job training. In nursing, it is used to help staff keep pace with sector advancements, new treatments, new technologies or approaches to care. So, they can deliver high quality, safe and effective care in all capacities and settings. CPD is in addition to any mandatory and statutory training that you are provided in your organisation.

As that kind of training must be undertaken by all staff regardless for personal safety and safe and efficient service delivery. As a nurse, CPD will play a significant part in your professional and personal development.

It also will help you contribute to improved patient outcomes. All the research points towards a strong correlation between learning and wellbeing. Staff skill development can also enhance productivity, inspire innovation and lead to increased retention in nursing teams. Besides the professional development and training necessary to carry out your role and responsibilities, as a nurse, you should also be supported to attain further qualifications.

Which enables you to provide evidence to regulators showing that you meet the professional standards needed to continue to practise. Through CPD and other training, nurses can continue to meet the health needs of their patients in advanced and efficient ways. One extremely convenient way to complete CPD is via online distance learning courses. As they enable you to study subjects highly relevant to your role, but at a time that fits comfortably around your work schedule.

This requires different modes of learning and ways of knowledge acquisition and construction. To achieve this, nurses can engage in different approaches of acquiring knowledge through CPD, through formal learning, courses or workshops as well as workplace informal learning, through self-reflection, appraising literature for best evidence through journal clubs and giving feedback to each other [ 5 , 7 , 15 ].

Informal learning is often volitional and is largely initiated and controlled by individual nurses with the intention to develop their knowledge and skills [ 16 , 17 , 18 ]. Due to its unstructured and, at times, unintentional manner, such learning is often acquired during interactions with colleagues and patients [ 19 ].

One of the advantages of on-site learning, both formal and informal is that learners can utilise expertise which are already available on the ward [ 5 , 15 ].

On-site learning occurs often at the discretion and the willingness of managers to facilitate by providing time and space for learning to occur within the clinical areas. Even so, the fact remains that informal on-site learning is not an event but a continuous process, which draws from daily professional experiences.

Lack of CPD trained nurses and ward needs, coupled with poor staffing levels, are cited as main barriers to informal workplace learning [ 5 , 15 ]. Evidence from CPD literature indicates that many nurses prefer informal work-based methods of learning, noting that most meaningful learning occurs through interactions with their colleagues [ 20 ]. This next section aims to illustrate the different mechanisms that arise in one specific health care setting when implementing CPD on a national scale.

We recognise that other mechanisms will exist in other contexts, and in places where CPD is not a formal requirement. Today, nurses in the U. Since the s, UK nurses and other allied health care professionals such as physiotherapists and occupational therapists have been required to engage in continuous professional development [ 23 ].

A justification for CPD has been the need to maintain professional registration to practice. For registered nurses in the UK, the requirement to engage in CPD came to the fore of continuing education in Further to that, the Agenda for Change Reforms in introduced a system for linking pay and career progression to competency called the National Health Service Knowledge and Skills Framework [ 25 ].

Its mandate was to equip the NHS National Health Service workforce, including nurses with appropriate knowledge and skills to deliver high standard care to patients. Revalidation is the process through with nurses and midwives continue as registrants with the Nursing and Midwifery Council NMC [ 25 ].

CPD funding in UK was cut from million pounds in —16 to 83 million in —18 [ 28 , 29 ]. Consequently, nurses have struggled to fulfil revalidation requirements due to some authorities freezing access and refusing to give nurses time to attend CPD activities [ 27 ]. This previous section offers an insight into different push-pull mechanisms, in the UK alone.

Statutory requirements are underpinned by the need for nurses to maintain and develop the knowledge and skills to meet the expected competence standards of practice in response to expanding nursing roles and global trends.

Our experience suggests that local governing bodies may enforce similar measures in contexts where CPD measure are not formalised. Nurses may find themselves caught between a patchwork of statutory requirements and a need to develop their skills and knowledge. In this study, a metasynthesis was used to investigate the qualitative literature [ 30 , 31 ]. Metasynthesis is a form of systematic review method used to review qualitative studies in order to develop theory, to explore and understand phenomena or generate new knowledge, thereby creating meaning from that knowledge [ 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 ].

In this review, we present a metasynthesis based on the interpretation of qualitative results from topically related qualitative reports. The results from metasynthesis studies may be used to underpin and inform healthcare policy, nursing practice and patient care. Furthermore, such information can be utilised by health care professionals involved in nursing education to inform planning and designing of training and educational programs.

A number of steps are taken when conducting a metasynthesis [ 36 ] and involve;. The literature search was conducted by a librarian. The literature search was conducted in December and was limited to articles published in English from to Inclusion and exclusion criteria for the literature search were established and are presented below in Table 2.

The inclusion criteria comprise of articles from empirical studies using qualitative methods , discussing nurse continuing learning and education, professional development, lifelong learning, CPD, motivation and barriers. A total of records were identified, and following de-duplication, articles remained. All articles were screened. After the first screening 72 articles remained.

These articles were divided into three batches and were divided among the researchers. Each author read one batch to further identify if the articles were to be included. For each batch, a second author read the articles, meaning all articles were read by at least two authors. Any remaining ambiguities were discussed and resolved among the team. Figure 1 is a summary of the literature search and screening and Table 3 presents an overview of each study with its citation, location, cohort size and data collection method.

All authors read the final 25 articles. In the quality assessment we assess the following components; Was there a clear statement of the aims of the research? We also introduce the question of whether the texts are available in Open Access form or not. However, without access to the data and the process of interpretation we choose not to assess; How valuable is the research? And what are the challenges faced by nurses when engaging in CPD?

In the next step of the analysis, study findings were examined using constant comparative analysis. The findings and conceptual categories were coded, compared, and sorted, focusing on conditions, strategies, and consequences. Finally, the synthesis, the interpretation of the findings, were described as themes, and these were revised several times until a coherent whole was formed [ 30 , 36 , 37 , 38 ] Before the final description of the synthesized themes, all the three authors discussed the content of the themes until consensus concerning credibility was reached.

Each theme is further explained below with references to the relevant literature. Organisational culture played an important role towards the professional development of staff.

Organisational commitment and support to personal and professional development of its staff was seen as an indication that staff were valued [ 5 , 15 ] Moreover, CPD initiatives contributed to attracting and retaining staff [ 39 ]. Additionally, a culture that was flexible and adaptable to change was perceived by some participants to be favourable towards CPD [ 40 , 41 , 42 ]. Flexibility extends to matters such as CPD availability, and also location, but related also to creating opportunities in the work schedule for the nurses to participate [ 43 ].

Developing a strategy for CPD was also acknowledged as a key element of organisational culture as a way of enabling participation [ 46 ]. In a similar fashion, it was argued that the organisation needs to be focussed on incremental, but constant development of practices, and here CPD was seen to play a key role [ 47 ]. This sentiment was expressed elsewhere too, but from a re-skilling, or keeping up-to-date perspective, where the organisation is seen to have great importance [ 48 , 49 ].

The value of partnerships and shared understanding between managers and nurses as key enabling factors was identified in several studies [ 46 , 50 ]. In a related fashion, Jantzen argues that organisations should actively avoid fragmentation of CPD initiatives [ 51 ]. It was acknowledged that the transformation to online learning does not only affect nurses, it involves change for the whole department [ 52 ].

An environment that supports learning was seen as a necessary prerequisite for CPD. Conditions had to include, flexible off-duty patterns to allow time for staff to study, availability of workplace learning, workloads were not excessive and CPD was fully funded or a shared responsibility between employer and staff [ 46 , 52 ]. Other indicators of a supportive environment included staff access to different CPD activities relevant to their career goals, while at the same time meeting organisational goals and where staff felt free to study openly and not secretively [ 15 , 41 ].

Moreover, the development of local and contextual CPD was seen as something that supported and made participation possible [ 43 , 53 , 54 ]. Participants indicated that nurses required financial support and practical support in the form of adequate time to participate in CPD activities and suitable staff cover when colleagues were away attending CPD activities [ 47 ].

Jantzen et al. Moral support or encouragement was identified in more than one study, where it was articulated that learners want to know there is an appreciation for the time and dedication needed to engage in CPD [ 44 , 46 , 50 ]. The value of learning from other health professionals other than nurses, in the day-to-day work was highlighted for professional development [ 54 ].

Similarly, the sense of a supportive environment with a strong team spirit is communicated elsewhere [ 39 ]. Explicit support is noted in several studies; support for novice nurses [ 39 ] but also the importance of explicit managerial support [ 55 ]. Conversely, in one study, respondents noted that there was less support for experienced or late career nurses [ 56 ].

The value and importance of CPD was discussed in many of the studies. In some, CPD was perceived to be key in defining nurse professionalism [ 6 , 15 , 40 , 47 , 49 ]. Engaging in CPD was also viewed by new nurse graduates as an important element of their individual professionalisation in nursing [ 6 , 15 , 40 ]. In addition, CPD was perceived to be important for enhancing and up or re-skilling, keeping knowledge and skills up-to-date, considering that nursing practice has become more evidence based [ 6 , 43 , 46 , 51 , 54 , 56 ].

Furthermore, nurses stated that CPD was important for maintaining licensure, and felt that the responsibility for enrolling and participating in CPD activities was with the individual nurse, not with the employing organisations [ 53 ]. On the other hand, participants felt more motivated to learn if they could easily access CPD programs, if they felt supported and if there were a variety of CPD activities on offer.

Here, bedside and informal learning was emphasized as important [ 57 ]. Similarly, contextualising learning and placing it in close proximity to practice was seen to enhance motivation and engagement [ 42 ]. CPD was also viewed as a way to start networking with other peers [ 44 ].

In one study, a competency framework was introduced, here participants felt that such a framework could help them reflect on their own practice and, as it provides a systematic approach to assessing a patient, look at their own strengths and weaknesses [ 58 ].

Such competency frameworks help to harness scarce training more effectively and encourage individuals to take more responsibility for their own development [ 58 ]. Poor staffing levels, heavy workloads, lack of funding, lack of study time and anti-intellectualism were some of the perceived barriers to CPD brought out by this review. Participants in the studies reviewed felt that a lack of organisational support, especially from their managers, was an indication that the organisation did not take professional development of its staff seriously [ 46 ].

Some respondents reasoned that an anti-academic culture and lack of relevant CPD programs was further indication of this [ 5 , 15 , 40 ]. Seeing a connection to patient care was identified as a strong driver and nurses identified that CPD initiatives would be filtered out unless there was such a clear connection to patient care [ 43 , 51 ].

Additionally, some studies indicated that as role models, managers had to show interest in their own CPD, in order to motivate other nurses. Fatigue was identified as a major barrier. For example in Jho et al. Lack of strategy, and financial initiatives in terms of money, or time off to study was also acknowledged as a barrier [ 5 , 39 , 54 , 56 ]. Lack of transparent career trajectories were also acknowledged as an area of concern [ 44 ]. Other barriers, or de-motivating factors were identified; difficulties in attending CPD and keeping a life-work balance [ 48 ].

Barriers included: formal CPD courses away from the clinical areas were perceived to lack in authenticity [ 47 , 49 ] and a mis-match in expectations and outputs, where nurses viewed themselves as agents of change, but where the organisation was unable to offer means to capitalise on this perception and desire to bring about change [ 50 , 59 ]. As much as competency frameworks were viewed positively in offering a sense of direction, a divergent view was that they were limiting or created set boundaries that participants experienced as limited, for example, if used as prescriptive, hindering nurses to define their own learning needs [ 58 ].

The impact of CPD on nursing practice was perceived as important and valuable in different ways. The impact could be both direct and indirect depending on the organisational culture [ 41 , 45 ]. This mixed perception could be due to the complex nature of health care organisations which can make knowledge sharing difficult [ 45 ] and that some CPD learning was done secretly, results of which were difficult to evaluate [ 41 ].

In the case where a competency framework was studied, participants felt that using the competency framework helped them organise their work and their thought processes [ 58 ].

Sentiments articulating expectations of an impact of CPD could also be seen elsewhere too [ 52 , 55 , 56 , 60 ]. Moreover, CPD is expected to rely on better communication between managers and nurses as a way of informing each other about needs and means of fulfilling those needs [ 48 ].

Direct impact was realised through improved interprofessional collaboration and the idea that new methods could be directly translated into practice [ 47 ]. Others however, raised concerns that CPD programmes or courses may not translate into new practices [ 50 ]. This sentiment was echoed elsewhere too, where a need to situate CPD in close proximity of patients was seen as important for CPD to impact practice [ 49 ] While indirect impact happened through dissemination of knowledge and skills from CPD learning to other nurses at ward level, arguments were put forward that there will be no difference to practice unless organisational processes support and evaluate its effect on practice [ 46 ].

Participants reported that their professional confidence was enhanced, they felt they could challenge medical decisions and the status quo [ 41 ].

Furthermore, participants felt that CPD enhanced their professional knowledge and skills for better patient care through improved care standards, how they communicated and collaborated with other professionals. Participants also believed that learning increased their chances for career progression and reduced work-related anxiety because of enhanced knowledge [ 40 , 41 ].

As a result, this metasynthesis revealed a number of overarching themes, which synthesize the findings of previous qualitative oriented research during the period — The themes put focus on important issues that were recurrently put forward by the nurses in the studies reviewed.

However, the themes are not isolated from each other, rather, the content of the themes is interrelated. What are the conditions necessary for CPD? What are the challenges faced by nurses when engaging in CPD? While we acknowledge that the questions and themes overlap, we have endeavoured to frame the discussion around the three research questions individually. Nurses reported that CPD raises professional standards through competencies gained, thereby increasing professional performance with positive benefits for patients, organisations and individual nurses [ 40 ].

Maintaining both requires nurses to keep their practice up-to-date highlighting the importance of CPD for nurses. The knowledge and skills gained by nurses through CPD advances the professional status of nursing, which was an idea that was prevalent in some of the studies in this review [ 15 , 40 , 47 , 50 ], but is also illustrated elsewhere in the literature [ 8 , 21 ].

Nurses acknowledged that expectations of professional accountability meant that standards of practice ought to be kept high in order to pass public scrutiny [ 15 , 40 ]. As such CPD is seen as a tool for nurses to update their skills, and in doing so deliver safe and high-quality health care. As revealed in this review, nurses were willing to fully fund or part-fund their CPD as long as CPD programs were captivating, easily accessible, there was fair allocation of study time and their efforts towards CPD were recognised.

The latter implies that nurses want time and space to transfer their CPD learning into practice and for their CPD to be recorded [ 5 , 45 ]. The belief is that, consequently, patient care will improve with positive impact from organisational change [ 15 , 45 ].