The Sefton Training Hub is delighted to share a fantastic success story about one of their past student learning disability nurses, Kim.

Newly graduated Learning Disability Nurse, Kim approached Sefton Training Hub’s Nurse Clinical Lead, Maggi Bradley, as a 2nd year nursing student. She’d heard about a project that Maggi was leading in a local General Practice Surgery, which aimed to increase access to Primary Care for groups of patients affected by the same condition, such as Asthma, and wanted to get involved.

Following a brief introduction to the project Kim was invited to further support this work. As her specialism was in Learning Disability, she hadn’t considered Primary Care as an option for the formal placement that her course required, but she embraced this as an opportunity not only to learn, but to influence positive outcomes.

Kim’s dedication to making the project work for patients and the Practice, was impressive. She also managed to open the eyes of clinicians in the Practice to improvements which could be made to the management of care of patients with learning disabilities. This led to the delivery of an additional program to build a new approach to the annual review process for LD patients, which Kim was able to support, with another student from the same student cohort.

Following her placement, and the successful completion of her nursing degree, Kim registered as a nurse and applied for a community role in Southport and Formby Health’s ECHC Team. Not only did she get an interview, she got the job!

In this community based role Kim is continuing to use her learning to influence and challenge the ways service users with learning disabilities are helped. Notably she is improving the ways users can input into their own reviews and care plans.

An additional element of Kim’s role within the PCN is to support the Sefton Training Hub’s LD student nurses when they join us on placement. She also contributes to weekly student education sessions.

Kim said, “Without the support that Maggi and the Sefton Training Hub, I wouldn’t be in my dream job. Not only have I been able to achieve this role, the experiences the Hub secured for me, have given me confidence to put forward new ideas to benefit people with Learning Disabilities. This is something that that I am very passionate about”.

The Nurse Management Team said, “With recruitment being so tight in Primary Care, we had to think differently and consider a new approach to recruiting nurses in our enhanced health in care homes team. It was ideal that we already knew Kim before we interviewed and employed her. She is settling in well and is progressing in her skills and we have gained her experience in caring for service users with learning disabilities. We highly recommend taking students on placement to support recruitment to Primary Care.”

Sefton Training Hub is a friendly team and we encourage Practices and PCNs to get in touch for more information on how we can make student placements work for them! You can contact the training hub by emailing Etp.admin@nhs.net, visit their website here.

You can view The Sefton Training Hub's case study about Kim's experience here.

About Student Nurse Placements

The Sefton Training Hub helps PCNs to prepare for a student nurse placement.

It assists in the audit process and offers preparation for staff in terms of the provision of supervision and assessment.

A student support tariff is available circa £122 per week pro rata.

The hub can assist the PCN to open the placement and support the student to work across a number of practices. This is particularly useful for smaller practice which may have a part-time practice nursing team.

Students gain experience from the whole Primary Care Team. This includes, NAs, CSWs, GPs, Pas, Physios, Social Prescribers, pharmacy teams, etc. They don’t have to be with a Practice Nurse all of the time