The Road to Becoming an Emergency Nurse

The 'Foundation Programme' was developed by our Emergency Department, Education Team as a developmental pathway for newly qualified or new to specialty nurses joining the department,

The aim is to provide them with the right skills and knowledge of an Emergency Nurse. The program is based on the 'ECA & RCN National Curriculum and Competency Framework – Emergency Nursing (Level 1)' and is scheduled over an 18 month to 2 year period with training days every 2 months.

Department-specific training has been incorporated, eg. 'Majors Assessment', 'Minors Assessment' and 'Paediatric Training'. The sessions are mainly taught and arranged by the ED Education Team, with support from the Medical and ACP Team, as we try and have a multidisciplinary approach to teaching within the Department.

This has been the first year that the programme has been running and we are learning a lot ourselves as we go along. The feedback has been positive and we believe that we have a good grounding for our junior nursing team when starting within the Emergency Department.

Our perfect scenario would be to collaborate with other Trusts in the region to develop robust teaching packages to support the programme and to provide a consistent level of training to all Newly Qualified or New to Speciality Nurses.