Edinburgh Napier University (ENU) School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Care is the largest provider of nursing and midwifery education in Scotland.  With over 1,500 student nurses on placement in hospital and community settings across the Lothian and Borders area, providing the right level of support to ensure students’ progress and qualify in line with the new NMC standards is a top priority. 

What were the challenges?

Prior to working with MyKnowledgeMap, ENU had a paper-based system for assessing student nurses in practice, with student nurses carrying the same practice assessment documentation with them for the three-year duration of their course.  Although the risk of loss or damage to the assessment documentation was moderate during their programme, the assessment book contained personal information in relation to the student and their mentor, the loss of which posed a higher risk and potential to breach GDPR. 

Developing the curriculum and establishing electronic Practice Assessment 

In February 2015, the ENU School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Care commenced an integrated approach to curriculum development.  The initial phase of this identified a number of short-life working groups to take forward specific focus areas with the overall aim of achieving a strategic process for all key stakeholders.  The Electronic Professional Development Portfolio (ePDP) Working Group’s role was to explore opportunities for electronic assessment for practice, and to investigate options for delivery of ePDP within the context for the new curriculum development and NMC standards.

Following the review of various system providers, the group recommended Myprogress, a mobile practice assessment tool and ePortfolio developed by MyKnowledgeMap. With over 20 years’ experience working with medical and healthcare institutions, including some of the UK’s top nursing schools, Myprogress is specifically designed to support the assessment and feedback for students in clinical settings.

Creating higher quality assessment, feedback and placement support

Since using Myprogress, a survey was carried out with students and mentors and there has been positive feedback from all users of the system.  It is highly recommended by students and mentors who have found the system to be quick and easy to use after training.  Students and mentors choose to use Myprogress to carry out assessments “off the floor” but have found that this provides dedicated mentorship time and overall higher quality assessment, feedback and placement support.

In terms of impact, within the survey, Academics report that Myprogress has been very effective and efficient in enabling them to monitor student progress in practice and verify the student’s achievement of NMC competencies.  Overall, students feel better supported on placement and Edinburgh Napier is able to easily demonstrate compliance with NMC standards and meet NES benchmarks.  Academics also report that there is a considerable reduction in their administrative time in verifying student practice documentation from the practice mentors, freeing valuable time to enhance student experience within practice and the programme overall.