Newsletter

Issue 19 | September 2019

IN THIS ISSUE:

IMPLEMENTATION OF NEW FRAMEWORK | ANNUAL SELF-ASSESSMENT |
QA HUB DEVELOPMENTS | REMINDER TO AEIs | QA VISITORS |
ON CALL AND IT SUPPORT |

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Welcome to the September 2019 Newsletter of the NMC quality assurance framework


Welcome to the first newsletter of the academic year 2019-20 and our new QA contract with the Nursing and Midwifery Council. In this issue we provide you with updates, news and information we hope you will find helpful.

Implementation of the new QA Framework – progress

We have all had a very busy year and a huge amount of work has been completed. This has resulted in a significant number of education institutions successfully progressing through the gateway process to meet NMC education and training standards and gaining NMC programme approval(s). There’s been a very high number of successful programme approvals against the new programme standards including the new pre-registration nursing programme and prescribing programmes. In England the number of apprenticeship routes approved for pre-registration nursing associate programmes and pre-registration nursing programmes has grown steadily.
The Standards for student supervision and assessment (SSSA) (NMC, 2018) are implemented in many practice learning organisations. More latterly we have processed a significant number of major modifications primarily for programmes approved against pre-2018 standards to transfer to the SSSA.

We fully appreciate the tolerance you have shown this year as we rolled out the new QA hub as part of the major change process for nursing, midwifery and nursing associate education. We have listened to your feedback and identified lessons learnt and will continue to improve and enhance our systems and processes.

Annual self-assessment – dates and deadline

A reminder to AEIs of key dates for the annual self-assessment report in relation to the academic year 2018-2019:

    Monday 18 November 2019 - Friday 17 January 2020
    The annual self-assessment report will be sent by email from the NMC to all official correspondents and copied to Lead Midwives for Education. AEIs in collaboration with their practice learning partners will have eight weeks to complete the report.

    Friday 17 January 2020
    Deadline for submitting the completed annual self-assessment report to the NMC

QA Hub developments

We are continuing to develop the QA hub and we are pleased to inform you that the following additional features are now live:

  • The return to practice, specialist practitioner qualification, and specialist community public health nursing programmes have been added to the programme list on the event request form and are now available.

  • Once your event request form has been processed and approved you can proceed to complete the programme standards mapping template for these programmes which are now available in gateway three.

  • The pre-registration nursing associate apprenticeship route has been added to the programme list on the event request form.

We’ll be sending out regular updates about other new developments on the QA hub as they go live. Updates coming soon include:

  • Major modification requests through the hub for all programmes, including guidance.

Reminders to AEIs

Event request forms/ERFs: It’s important AEIs complete the ERF accurately in particular the programme title/s which should be consistent with programme title/s detailed in the programme specification. The same title/s should be reflected in all other programme documentation subsequently submitted through the QA hub. In addition, the proposed programme start date must be accurate.

Returning programme approval reports following AEI observations: AEIs must return the programme approval report via the QA hub advising whether or not they have any observations. We will not be able to progress the programme approval report and submit the report to the NMC until the AEI returns the report. This will cause a delay in the approval outcome being issued to the AEI from the NMC.

Don’t forget what’s available to assist AEIs and visitors on our website
There are a series of webinars and videos on our website to assist AEIs and visitors in using the QA hub, completing the gateways, approval reports, uploading evidence to meet conditions etc

For AEIs there is:

  • a revised QA hub guide available since March 2019

  • a guide for uploading documents to meet conditions

QA hub guidance

  • A useful schedule of deadline dates for completing each of the gateways is also available on the website. The deadline dates are based on programmes due for approval September 2019 to May 2020. Schedule

For visitors:

  • QA hub guidance for registrant and lay visitors. QA hub user guide QA hub user guide

Webinars and videos on:

  • Completing the Initial Draft Programme Approval Report

  • Completing the Final Programme Approval Report

  • Updating the Final Programme Approval Report to meet conditions

Accessed through the training resource link

QA visitors

New QA visitors: We have successfully recruited a number of new QA visitors for midwifery and prescribing programmes who will complete visitor training in October 2019.

Existing QA visitors: With all these changes QA visitors need to be kept up to date. They will continue to have their annual update training which will occur in October 2019.

On call, IT support and new helpline number

QA visitors and the staff in AEIs can contact us if they have any queries.

For administrative or IT support contact the operations team at Mott MacDonald via email nmc@mottmac.com or via our helpline number, which will connect you to the first available operations team member: 01223 463441.

For professional issues, please telephone or email whoever is on call. The on-call rota and contact details are available here: On-call rota

If you have any comments or suggestions related to this latest edition of the newsletter please send them to me at bernie.wallis@mottmac.com

Bernie Wallis | Deputy Director of Reviews

The Mott MacDonald Group is an independent management, engineering and development consultancy with over 12,000 staff working in over 140 countries.

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