Nursing Student Placement Guide

Before going on a clinical placement

There are mandatory requirements which must be completed before a learner can go into the clinical areas.

When learners are offered a place at the University, they will be asked to complete a Disclosure and Barring check, an occupational health questionnaire and complete the required and recommended vaccinations for attendance in the clinical areas. Learners will also be expected several mandatory units of learning prior to their first placement, and to update them in forthcoming years. These checks and processes form part of a contract between the University and the clinical learning environments to protect learners, and the public they care for. If these processes are not completed in a timely manner learners will not be able to attend the clinical areas, and this may interfere with the completion of their programme.

Absence from placement due to illness

If at any point during the course learners are unable to attend a scheduled shift on a placement, they should;

• record absence from shift on InPlace via timesheets.
• inform the placement area of any absences prior to the shift starting.
• Make a note of the date and time they rang the learning environment and the name of the person they spoke to
• Inform the University via hhs-nursing@hud.ac.uk
• If a learner is ill for more than 7 days (including Saturday and Sunday) the learner must provide a medical certificate completed by their doctor, which should be sent to the course assistants within 7 days via email hhs-nursing@hud.ac.uk

Consistently poor attendance

Learners must meet NMC requirements re clinical hours on the programme: consistently poor attendance may mean they fail to do this. In addition, poor attendance may impact upon achievement of proficiencies and impact on assessment around professional values.

Learners with poor attendance on placement can expect their practise supervisor or assessor to contact the placement learning facilitator and the academic assessor to report their concerns.

The academic assessor will contact the learner’s personal academic tutor who will contact the learner to offer advice and guidance and support to assist the learner to attend placement as expected. Learners will be signposted to wider University support too e.g. The Wellbeing service and ‘Back on Track support’ https://students.hud.ac.uk/help/wellbeing/

The aim of this process is to ensure that the learner receives the support they require as well as to ensure that they understand the long-term implications of consistently poor attendance.

It is important to note that if attendance continues to be poor, the learner can be referred to the Fitness to Practice or fitness to study process, possibly being asked to leave the course.

https://www.hud.ac.uk/registry/current-students/taughtstudents/fitnesstopractise/ftp-procedure/

Fitness to study procedure – University of Huddersfield

Or the learner may be asked to temporarily withdraw from the programme and join a later cohort.

Requesting a change to allocated placements

Placements are allocated by the University to ensure that all students get the breadth of experiences necessary to meet the requirements of the course. Therefore, changes to placements are not permitted unless there are exceptional circumstances which may be as follows:

• Conflict of interest between the student and the placement (e.g., the presence of a family member in the placement area)
• Substantive post held in the placement area
• Physical or Mental Health reasons which must be supported with a doctor’s letter

Placements will not be changed for the following reasons:

• To accommodate childcare arrangements
• Travel distance/cost. You are expected to travel up to 1.5 hours from the base site (which is the University of Huddersfield main campus; for Blended learning students this is their home address) and may have up to 2 changes of transport.
• Mental or physical ill health without evidence
• Personal preference
• Paid employment arrangements

Students wishing to request a change to their allocated placement must complete the ‘Placements exceptional circumstances form’ and submit this within 2 weeks of being notified of their placement. This form should be returned to the HHS Placements Team at hhs-placements@hud.ac.uk.

Download the Placement Allocation Policy.

Dress code on placement and in the clinical skill environments on university property

The public’s first impression of healthcare students is very important and helps to instill public confidence in healthcare students. A smart professional image is expected of all students when on clinical placement and in the clinical skills laboratories. Students must ensure that clothes and accessories worn on placement and in the skills labs are well maintained and adhere to infection control and health and safety policies.

Patients, visitors, members of the public, partner organizations and patient groups need to see healthcare student as competent, respectful, professional, trustworthy, safe, reliable, and caring. Wearing the correct uniform or plain clothes helps to promote this professional image.

The University recognises diversity of cultures, religions, and beliefs, and that in some instances students may need to request a change to their uniform or clothes worn in placement. This may include:

• Pregnancy
• Disability
• Gender
• Religious Observance 

When considering the above it is still of primary importance for students to dress professionally, adhere to infection control policies and procedures and ensure the safety of themselves and their clients/patients while following the general principles below. The School of Nursing has a Professional Appearance Policy and Dress Code which student nurses are expected to adhere to.

Reporting concerns in the clinical learning environment

Learners may have concerns with aspects of their clinical placement. If the concern relates to supervision and assessment in placement the learner should discuss this with their practice supervisor/assessor in the first instance. If unresolved the learner should contact the Practice educator and Link tutor for the area. If the issue is still unresolved the link tutor will contact the Head of Practise Education (HoPE) for their programme who liaises with the practice education team/placement.

If the concern relates to quality of patient care in placement the learner should discuss this with their practice supervisor/assessor or placement manager in the first instance. If unresolved the learner should contact the Link tutor. If the issue is still unresolved the link tutor will contact the Head of Practice Education (HoPE) for their programme. The University policy related to raising concerns in practice areas is here:

Download Student Raising Concerns in Practice flowchart.

NB This guide is currently being updated (Sept 2023)

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) have produced guidelines on raising concerns about care “Student nurses and midwives are now protected by legislation if they raise concerns about care”. https://www.nmc.org.uk/standards/guidance/raising-concerns-guidance-for-nurses-and-midwives/

Practice assessment documents

University of Huddersfield learner nurses complete their practice assessment documents (PAD) via an online platform ‘PebblePad’™ The completion of this document in a timely and thorough manner is fundamental to completing the course. The PAD is the complete record of learner achievement of the required Nursing and Midwifery Council proficiencies. The PAD document requires significant input from practice supervisors and assessors and academic assessor, but it is very important that the learner takes ownership of this document and proactively seeks learning opportunities and ensures that these are evidenced in the PAD. The learner must establish dates with the practise assessor to complete the initial, intermediate, and final assessments of their clinical development and ensure this is fully recorded in the PAD.

There are many opportunities within the Practice modules and allocated Brightspace areas for learners to learn how to complete the PAD. The Placement learning facilitators can also support the learners and their practice supervisors/assessors to complete the document if that is necessary.

Learners will enable practice supervisors and assessors to access their PAD by contacting Learning Technology Advisers lta@hud.ac.uk. Instructions for doing this will be in the Nursing Practice module information on Brightspace, also on the placement web area: Nursing Student Placement Guide – HHS Placements

If the learner has any technical issues accessing their PAD they should contact Learning Technology Advisers lta@hud.ac.uk.  

In some parts of the programme learners may undertake ‘practice hours only’. This means that all the required elements of the PAD have been previously completed but the learner is still attending placement. Any time spent in clinical learning environments, real or virtual, are valuable learning experiences. Learners can continue to enhance their PAD at any point in their placement and practice supervisors/ assessors will continue to monitor learner progress. The learner must always show the required professional values and continue to develop their nursing competencies and proficiencies. If a learner has been assessed as achieving the professional values, or a particular proficiency, but then practices at an unacceptable standard the practice supervisor or assessor can adjust their comment and create an action plan to support the required learner development.

Making up missed placement hours

The programme is designed so that learners can achieve the NMC requirements to complete 2300 hours of clinical learning by the end of their course.

The standard working week whilst on a clinical placement is 37.5hours. The University recognise the reflection time undertaken by learners away from the clinical area and they add 2.5hours per clinical learning week, as planned on the programme.

If a learner is in a situation where they missed clinical learning hours, for example if they have been unwell, they will need to ‘make up hours’. The way learners make up hours is dependent upon the amount of time to be made up.