Climbing the ladder often means leaving the “bedside”, this is something that can leave mixed emotions for the individual. As a result, we are losing years of clinical experience and expertise which could impact on the future training and on-the-job development for early career or inexperienced colleagues.

The secondary issue that arises with nurses leaving the bedside is skill decay, where a person loses the skills developed in the clinical area through lack of everyday practice. This is being increasingly acknowledged in health care literature (Maehle, 2017). However, the biggest barrier is the resulting lack of confidence in personal skills and ability, particularly where someone is now seen as a senior colleague by those at the bedside.

The NMC code clearly states; “6.2 maintain the knowledge and skills you need for safe and effective practice.” After prolonged periods away from the clinical area, how confident and competent are some in performing the necessary skills?

Models used within midwifery services enforce all registered midwives have clinical shifts and partake in the on-call rota regularly. This maintains the clinical skills needed to perform as a midwife. Is such a model needed within nursing?

References

Maehle V, Cooper K and Kirkpatrick P (2017) Absolute clinical skill decay in the medical, nursing and allied health professions: a scoping review protocol, JBI Database of Systematic Reviews and Implementation Reports, 15(6), pp. 1522-1527. doi: 10.11124/JBISRIR-2016-003094

NHS England (no date) Back to the Floor: supporting your return to clinical practice. Available at: https://www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/back-to-the-floor/

NMC (2018) The Code: Professional standards of practice and behaviour for nurses, midwives and nursing associates. Available at: https://www.nmc.org.uk/standards/code